WIREDGOV

Cllr Izzi Seccombe, the Local Government Association's (LGA's) Community Wellbeing spokeswoman, responded to the National Audit Office report on discharging older patients from hospital

"No one's elderly parent, grandparents or friends should be left unnecessarily in a hospital bed, when they could be treated in the comfort and dignity of their own home.

"The National Audit Office has identified potential savings of £820 million for the NHS but has also found additional annual costs of around £180 million for other parts of the health and social care system.  

"What is clear is that this is no longer just a winter pressure but is now a whole year challenge to ensure that the entire health and social care system is able to cope with the increased demand on the NHS.

"Getting people out of hospital more quickly and back living at home will only work properly if councils get enough resource throughout the whole year to properly fund adequate provision of care services. Councils are absolutely committed to reducing the level of delayed transfers of care from the NHS and in the vast majority of areas are working with their local health partners to help reduce pressures on the NHS.

"While measures announced late last year for social care go some way to addressing the problems facing adult social care funding, concerns remain that future years will still be extremely challenging, particularly until 2018. That is why the LGA continues to call for £700 million of the funding earmarked for social care through the Better Care Fund by the end of the decade to be brought forward now, to ease the severe strain on services supporting the elderly and vulnerable."

Further information and related report are available here: https://www.nao.org.uk/press-releases/discharging-older-patients-from-hospital/