Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 16 October 2017 to Question 107800, on hospital beds, whether his Department has received requests for extra support to assist in reducing delays to the transfer of care from hospital trusts.

While the Department works with NHS England and NHS Improvement to support hospitals and local government to reduce delayed transfers of care (DTOC) on an ongoing basis, we are not aware of specific requests for extra support.

The Government has invested an additional £2 billion of funding in adult social care to support adult social care services and to help reduce pressures on the National Health Service including through reducing DTOC. Clear support mechanisms for local areas on DTOC have also been put in place and guidance has been provided on best practice in key areas, such as how to put in place ‘trusted assessor’ arrangements which can allow more efficient discharge from hospital by avoiding duplicative patient assessments by different organisations.