Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the delays to discharge from hospitals owing to the lack of availability of social care; and what steps they intend to take to address this.

We are working with NHS England and local government to monitor and address discharge delays. NHS England’s data shows that on 31 August there were 13,195 patients in hospital in England who no longer meet the criteria to reside. However, this data does not record whether those patients are awaiting a care home placement or care at home.

In December 2021, the Department established the National Hospital Discharge Taskforce with membership from local and central government, the National Health Service to identify long-term, sustainable measures to reduce delayed discharges. The Taskforce launched a ‘100-day discharge challenge’ in July 2022, focusing on 10 best practices for use in hospitals. Integrated care systems and local areas have been invited to submit expressions of interest to become ‘discharge frontrunners’ to facilitate the sharing of good practice and ideas to ease discharge pressures. In addition, we are simplifying the recruitment of eligible workers from overseas to allow social care employers to fill vacancies.