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To help reduce delayed discharges, NHS Digital has announced £1.4m funding for local authorities and their NHS partners to integrate their patient discharge from hospital into local authority social care process.

Applications are now open for pioneering local authorities with adult social care responsibilities to work with at least one of their NHS partners, to create integrated digital assessment, discharge and withdrawal notices (ADW).²

The National Audit Office reported in 2016 that there was an estimated £820m gross cost to the NHS due to approximately 2.7m older patients in hospital who no longer required acute treatment, leading to 1.15m hospital bed days lost³.

The current, non-digital systems in place to handle ADWs have been identified by local authorities and their NHS partners as one of the stumbling blocks to the transfer of care, and local authorities therefore run the risk of being non-compliant with the Care Act 2014⁵.

This has led NHS Digital, in conjunction with NHS England, to offer funding to partnerships that have the potential to speed up the process.

Tom Denwood, Director of Data and Integration at NHS Digital said: "Local authorities and their NHS partners have a huge challenge ahead of them in tackling the steadily worsening problems caused by delayed transfers of care, so that patients can be supported back into their own homes and regain their independence as quickly as possible.

"These issues impact on the NHS, the patients and their carers, especially during the winter months when demand on public health services increases.

"We know that technology has the potential to speed up the discharge process by integrating the health and social care IT systems, and we are here to support both local government and the wider NHS to help make this happen."

Ben Moody, Head of Health and Social Care at techUK said: "This offers a good opportunity for our members, both to those who are delivering solutions to individual organisations or delivering integrated records, to improve citizen care."

For more information on applying:

Visit: https://nhsengland.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.html

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Notes to editors

1. NHS Digital is the national information and technology partner of the health and care system. Our team of information analysis, technology and project management experts create, deliver and manage the crucial digital systems, services, products and standards upon which health and care professionals depend. Our vision is to harness the power of information and technology to make health and care better.
2. Only local authorities with adult social care responsibilities will be eligible to bid for a share of the funding; it will be available to those local partnerships that employ effective systems that are available for other local authorities to use (also known as commercial, off-the-shelf systems). NHS Digital provides a Messaging Service for Social Care that can be used in the local solutions and that complies with the Information Standard, however local authorities are free to create their own solution so long as it also complies.
3. Figures can be found in the National Audit Office's report 'Discharging older patients from hospital' which can be found here.
4. The Care Act 2014 set responsibilities on local authorities with regards the communication of data in assessment, discharge and withdrawal notices. As part of this, NHS Digital has worked with partners to produce an Information Standard to support the Regulations associated with the Act, with which local authorities must comply.

Have a question? Call us on 0300 303 5678 or contact enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.

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