Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what assessment he has made of the number of delayed transfers of care attributable to patients awaiting a care package in their own home; and what steps he is taking to reduce the number of such delays.

NHS England publishes a snapshot of the number of patients ready for transfer but still occupying a hospital bed on the last Thursday of each month, and the total number of delayed days during the month for all patients delayed throughout the month. The data show the reasons for these delays, including how many were attributable to patients awaiting a care package in their own home, awaiting nursing home placement or availability, and awaiting residential home placement or availability. A national time series of the data from August 2010 is available at:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/delayed-transfers-of-care/2016-17-data/

The organisation level data, also available at this link, shows that there is considerable variation between local authorities in the number of delayed transfers.

The Department is working closely with NHS England, NHS Improvement and local government to support local areas reduce delayed transfers of care. This includes nationally mandated interventions to support discharge processes and patient flow during the winter months.