§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Social Services why information about the numbers of patients transferred from National Health Service non-psychiatric hospitals to the care of local authorities is not collected centrally; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. John PattenVery large numbers of people are in the care of non-psychiatric NHS hospitals and of local authorities at different times and changes from one type of care to another will not necessarily be a matter of specific arrangements between health and local authorities. Information about people receiving services from local authorities after discharge from hospital would therefore in many cases not be recorded and such information as may be available could be collected centrally only at a cost disproportionate to any use to which the information could be put.
The Health Service information steering group chaired by Mrs. E. Korner has recommended a classification for hospital patients' destination on discharge which includes local authority residential accommodation as a separate category. Decisions on this and the steering group's many other recommendations will be taken as soon as possible.