§ Ms Oona KingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what(a) representations he has received on and (b) assessment he has made of the likely change in host social services facilitating the discharge of patients outside their catchment area, following the introduction of fines for delayed hospital discharge; [83491]
(2) what impact he expects the introduction of fines for delayed hospital discharge to have on those hospitals with (a) regional specialties and (b) large concentrations of patients from outside their area; [83493]
(3) what measures he will take to encourage host social services to continue work currently undertaken to facilitate the discharge of patients not in their catchment area; [83492]
(4) what measures he will take to facilitate the discharge of patients who do not live in the area served by the social services department in the hospital under his proposals to fine local authorities for delayed hospital discharge. [83490]
§ Jacqui SmithTwo councils have raised concerns on this. Under the provisions of the Community Care (Delayed Discharges, etc.) Bill, responsibility for arranging the social care of someone ready for discharge from hospital would rest with the council where the patient lives, rather than the council where the acute hospital trust is based. However, we would expect the relevant social services departments to continue to work together over discharge, as they do now.
The Bill will ensure that there are financial incentives in place for both local councils and the national health service to ensure that they tackle delayed transfers of care. It will also encourage quicker and better identification of the appropriate council responsible for providing social care services to patients. In particular, this will be of great benefit to specialist hospitals and those that attract patients from some distance away.
Social workers will, as now, need to be involved in the assessments of patients in acute hospital trusts. This will be re-emphasised in the forthcoming revision of the Hospital Discharge Workbook.