Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve and accelerate the hospital discharge process.

The Government is committed to improving hospital discharge processes and tackling discharge delays.

The Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 sets as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged. They should eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days, and to profile discharges by pathway to support local planning.

In January 2025, we published a new policy framework for the £9 billion Better Care Fund. This gives the National Health Service and local authorities accountability for setting and achieving joint goals for reducing discharge delays and preventing avoidable emergency admissions and care home admissions.