Government shares details of how £500m discharge fund will be distributed

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has shared details of how the £500 million discharge fund will be given to help free up hospital pressures and reduce strain on NHS.

The announcement of this discharge funding was first unveiled on 22 September 2022 as part of wider plans to improve patient care during the traditional challenging winter period.

Now, Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay has explained how the funding will be distributed.

He has also outlined how the investment will help to speed up patient discharge, free up hospital beds to reduce ambulance handover times, and improve social care capacity. He shared these details at the NHS Providers annual conference.

As part of the £500 million discharge fund, £300 million will be given to integrated care boards (ICBs) to improve bed capacity and £200 million for local authorities to bolster the social care workforce, increasing capacity to take on more patients from hospitals.

Local authorities and ICBs – organisations that bring the NHS together locally to improve health in the community – will work together to agree on spending across their regions, introducing tailored solutions which speed up discharge and benefit patients in their area.

DHSC says that allocations will be published “in due course” with payments to be made in the coming weeks. A second tranche of funding will be distributed in January 2023.

Alongside the discharge funding, Steve Barclay added that the UK Government will also allow local areas to decide how it can speed up hospital discharges, referencing using occupational therapists and physiotherapists in people’s homes as a potential solution.

Speaking at the NHS Providers annual conference in Liverpool, the Health and Social Care Secretary said: “I am pleased to announce details of the fund which will be provided to ICBs and local authorities to free up beds, at a time when bed occupancy is at 94%.

“In line with our devolved and data-driven approach we will be allowing local areas to determine how we can speed up the discharge of patients from hospital. This might be through purchasing supportive technology boosting domiciliary care capacity or physiotherapists and occupational therapists to support recovery at home.

“We will also be looking closely at the impact of how funding is used and using this data to inform future decisions around funding.”

Local areas will be free to spend this money on initiatives which will have the greatest impact in their area on reducing discharges into social care. Funding may also be used to boost adult social care workforce capacity, through staff recruitment and retention, where that will help reduce delayed discharges.

Minister of State for Care Helen Whately commented: “People should be cared for in the best place for them, but discharge delays mean patients are spending too long in hospital.

“Our discharge fund will get more people cared for in the right place at the right time. We’re asking hospitals and the social care system to work together to help patients and carers too, who often take on a lot of the burden of caring when someone leaves hospital.

“The discharge fund will boost the social care workforce and in turn reduce pressures on the NHS and hospital staff, as it frees up beds and helps improve ambulance handover delays.”