How is the Cabinet Secretary working with local authorities to ensure that patients can be transferred back to a social care bed once their hospital treatment is complete?
Ensuring that people can leave hospital safely and as soon as they are clinically optimised is a key Government priority and a cross-sector responsibility.
We have published Hospital Discharge Guidance for frontline staff to support consistent and effective discharge practice. The Guidance promotes early and sustained engagement between partners, including care providers, to enable smooth transitions home with a package of care, or into community-based care settings where required, including when a person is returning to a care home.
The Guidance aligns with the Discharge to Recover then Assess (D2RA) Pathways, which require hospital teams to assess and provisionally allocate patients to one of four pathways soon after admission.
The Pathways of Care Delays reporting framework provides health and social care partners with comprehensive monthly oversight of the key reasons for delays and recurring themes. Regions use this intelligence alongside wider population needs data to identify local drivers of delay and shape community service provision accordingly.
Alongside these system improvements, we have allocated £30m through the Pathways of Care Transformation Grant in 2025/26 to local authorities. This funding supports improved patient flow, timely discharge, and the prevention of unnecessary hospital admissions by strengthening community based social care.
Regional Partnership Boards (RPBs) also play a central role in developing a coordinated, cross sector approach to supporting people to stay well at home or recover closer to home. This includes leading the development of Population Needs Assessments, which provide a statutory, evidence-based understanding of current and future care and support needs.