Care Homes: Hospital Discharges

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their estimate of the number of people currently in hospital waiting to be discharged to care homes when places become available.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Dubs, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord O’Shaughnessy) (Con)]

My Lords, information is collected on the number of bed days occupied by patients waiting to be discharged from hospital. The latest available information estimates that on an average day in August this year, 1,574 beds were occupied by patients waiting to be discharged to nursing or residential care homes.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, that is a big number. I understand that over the last financial year, about 2.3 million days were essentially lost because of transfer delays. We know the number of nursing home places has been reduced by 4,000 over the last two years; we know social services are under pressure; we know the health service is not using housing services sufficiently. Why does the health service seem determined, in its STP plans for each area, to rush into yet further plans to cut acute capacity when hospitals are under so much pressure at the moment?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I am glad the noble Lord mentioned the number within a year. He will be interested to know, as other noble Lords will, that the number of delayed transfers of care went down year on year between August 2016 and August 2017. That is good news. That reduction has been caused by greater funding in that period and a greater focus on accountability, particularly for local authorities and trusts together. In terms of acute capacity, the number of beds has been relatively stable recently and NHS England has introduced a new test for any reconfigurations that adds a fifth category, looking at the number of beds available in any given area.