§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what estimate he has made of the costs to local authorities of the proposed fines for delayed discharge [83851]
(2) what formula he will use to distribute the £100 million from the NHS to social services to recompense for delayed discharge [85235]
(3) which organisations he consulted on the policy of the extra £100 million for social services budgets for tackling delayed discharge that will come from within the NHS budget; [85233]
961W(4) how he arrived at the figure of £100 million for the annual cost to social services departments in England for delayed discharge; and if he will publish the calculations and data used to arrive at his estimate [85230]
§ Jacqui Smith[holding answers 28 November and 4 December 2002]: The maximum cost that social services would face in payments to hospitals under the Community Care (Delayed Discharges, etc) Bill would be £100 million in any one year. That is on the assumption that councils make no progress at all beyond the targets they have already set themselves to reduce the levels of delayed discharges from hospitals by March 2003. It pre-supposes that social services do not use the annual increase in resources to put in place new services to help reduce delayed discharges from hospitals still further and that none of the £1 billion—most of which is earmarked—for elderly care services actually gets spent on building up capacity in elderly care services. Given these assumptions, the Government does not believe that social services will have to pay £100 million to the health service.
Nevertheless, for each of the next three full years, an extra £100 million—on top of the resources already made available—will be transferred from the national health service budget to social services for each full year in which the scheme operates. This will provide a positive incentive to make the system work. This will enable individual councils to gain from the system, provided that they make available the community services needed to reduce delayed discharges from hospitals. The fundamental objection to the Bill, particularly from local government interests during consultation, was that social services were being given a new responsibility without adequate resources. These resources address that.
The formula for allocating this to councils is still being considered.