Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of recent trends in the level the social care capacity available to support discharges from hospitals in the last 12 months.

Comparing December 2024 to December 2023, there was a 5% decrease in the average number of patients in hospital with delayed discharge at the end of each day. In December 2024, for patients with a length of stay of at least 14 days, an average of 33% of the delays were attributed to reasons relating to the capacity for onward care and support, due to issues with adult social care services, National Health Services, or housing. This proportion has come down from 37% in June 2024, when this figure was first published.