Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his department will put in place constitutional standards for hospital discharges.

There are no immediate plans to introduce additional constitutional standards at this time, including for the timeliness of discharge from hospital.

However, the Urgent and Emergency Care plan for 2025/26 set as a priority that hospitals should tackle the delays in patients waiting to be discharged. They should profile discharges by pathway to support local planning, eliminate discharge delays of more than 48 hours caused by in-hospital issues, and work with local authorities to tackle the longest delays, starting with those over 21 days.