Oral Answers to Questions

Ian C. Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ben Gummer)]

My hon. Friend is right. A further cause of distress for the people of Wales is the fact they do not have the funding that the NHS requires in their country, just as England would not had a Labour Government been elected in 2015, because we would not have the funding that this Conservative Government have promised to ensure top care for patients.

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

T5. The all- party spinal cord injury group, which I chair, recently reported that very vulnerable patients are being prejudiced by delayed discharges, taking up lots of public money in hospital expenses that should be used to treat more patients. Will the Secretary of State carry out an urgent service review to address this real problem in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland?

[Alistair Burt]

Delayed discharge has been a problem across the system for many years. An awful lot of work is going on to ensure that more preventive work is done so that people do not go into hospital, and to ensure that if they do go in they leave quickly. I visited Salford Royal only a couple of months ago and saw the process it has for dealing with discharges more effectively. Learning is going on throughout the system, and more money is in the system for winter in order to cover the problem.