Ambulance Pressures

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will know that today the Government published the better care fund framework 2022-23, with some £7 billion to join up health and social care. Against a background of the problems that have been raised so far, particularly with delayed discharge, should not a bigger slice of that £7 billion go to increasing the capacity of places where people can be discharged to from hospital to complete their convalescence—to be assessed prior to going on, either back home or to a nursing home or residential care? We need more of those intermediate places to remove some of the blockages that have been referred to.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend will have heard me refer to step-down beds or places in my previous answer. He is right that the better care fund framework has been in place for a number of years to improve delayed discharge and the link-up between health care and social care. I am sure the framework document published today was based on the lessons of the operation of that fund in previous years and will seek to use that best practice going forward.