Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that all older people who need support on leaving hospital receive such support.

It is the responsibility of individual hospitals to put local discharge planning arrangements in place, including for older people who need support. Patients should only be discharged from hospital when there has been an assessment of the support they need to be discharged safely. This requires local health and care organisations to work together to ensure transfers between care settings are centred around patients and their carers.

The Government is investing billions over the course of this Parliament to improve the integration of health and social care services through its Better Care Fund.

NHS England is leading a national programme to improve discharge of older people from hospital, building on successful local and national initiatives already in place such as “discharge to assess”.