Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with (a) NHS leaders and (b) representatives of the social care sector on reducing the number of delayed transfers of care in hospitals over winter 2021.

Data on delayed transfers of care has not been collected since March 2020. Since April 2020, COVID-19 Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response Acute and Community Daily Discharge Situation Report data has been collected. This measures delays in hospital and the reasons for these delays for patients with a length of stay of more than 14 and 21 days. NHS England and NHS Improvement are improving the data quality of this new collection and exploring the potential to publish the data in future. The Department continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement, local government and social care providers to monitor and address the underlying causes which contribute to delayed discharges. This includes a network of weekly regional and national cross-sector meetings which inform regular Ministerial meetings with NHS England and NHS Improvement on winter pressures.