Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients who have been medically fit to be discharged have subsequently become medically unfit for discharge due to the delay in the discharging process, in the last 12 months; and what steps he is taking to reduce the discharge time for patients who are medically fit to be discharged.

Delayed Transfer of Care data submitted nationally is aggregated and not at patient-level. Therefore, it is not possible to identify how many patients have experienced deterioration in their clinical position due to delayed discharge.

In January 2020 there were an average of 5,182 people experiencing a delayed discharge each day. There are currently (on average) 1,418 fewer people delayed in a National Health Service bed every day than there were at the February 2017 baseline position of 6,660 people delayed per day.

This year the Government provided an additional £240 million for adult social care to help reduce delays in patients being discharged from hospital by providing social care support.