L

Lord Kamall (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 9 February 2026

Debate

Hospitals: Delayed Discharges

Contribution

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for raising this issue a number of times over many years to Governments of all colours. The latest acute discharge situation report suggests several reasons for delayed discharges, some of which the noble Baroness mentioned: awaiting medicines to take home, awaiting a discharge letter or other discharge documentation, or awaiting transport. Setting aside some of the more complex cases—people who are homeless or who require specialist treatment—organising transport and medicines in alignment with someone’s discharge date should, in theory, be quite simple once the systems are digitised and share data between them, but for now we hear stories of hours spent on the phone to care homes to find out which ones have space for discharged patients. Given these challenges, how is Minister’s department supporting ICBs to align their systems to reduce these delays caused by both small procedural blockages and digital disconnects, which slow down the whole system and sometimes lead to it being seized up?

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