Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that patients have timely access the care require to leave hospital in order to ease pressure on the NHS from delayed discharge from hospital.

The Department is clear that no one should stay in a hospital bed longer than necessary. The jointly set Better Care Fund (BCF) plans focus on reducing delayed transfers of care (DToCs). All local health and care systems must adopt the centrally-set expectations for reducing or maintaining rates of DToC during 2019-20 in their BCF plans.

The Government provided £240 million in 2019-20, pooled in the BCF, to support local health and care systems to manage demand pressures on the National Health Service. This includes interventions that support people to be discharged from hospital to access the appropriate social care to help promote their independence.

The last available published figures for delayed transfers are for December performance. These show that since the peak in February 2017, there has been a reduction in the average number of delayed days per day of over 1,800.