Urgent and Emergency Care

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

This obviously involves debates with Treasury colleagues about pay—not just on the social care side, but in respect of the NHS and the interplay with pensions—but it is not just about that; it is also about ensuring that we have the right data, and through the integrated care systems we are acquiring much better data to improve our ability to join up what is being spent on delayed discharge within the NHS with what is being done in the social care setting. I am sure Members will agree that not only is it often very damaging for frail elderly patients to spend a long time in hospital, but hospital is usually the most expensive place in the system for them to be. It is not just a question of having more money, although that is often the default; it is a question of thinking about how to get flow into the system in a way that will deliver not only patient care, but a more efficient service.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

On checking my website, I saw that it was in late 2005—not a period of Conservative government—that my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), the then Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Romsey and I were complaining about the closure of in-patient beds in small community hospitals. Does the Secretary of State accept that there is a role for such beds in enabling appropriate discharge from the larger hospitals, thus dealing with one of the main causes of people being stuck in ambulances without being able to be given a bed?

[Steve Barclay]

That, I think, relates to the point that I just made about the need for flow in the system and an appropriate step-down capacity. Sometimes patients are not yet ready to be discharged to their homes, but some additional physio or other support may enable them then to go home, which is where they usually want to be. This is all part of taking a much more integrated approach, and part of that must be improving the quality of data in relation to the activity that takes place within community settings.