Councils to get further £12M to ease bed-blocking

By The Press Association29th January 2015News EnglandBusiness / Funding / Finance, Finance, Local Authorities, News England

Town halls are to get a cash injection to help ease pressure on the NHS by reducing delays in people leaving hospital and receiving social care.

The Government says a further £12m will be handed out to 87 councils in England on top of an earlier Department of Health (DoH) grant of £25m to local authorities with the highest level of delayed hospital discharges resulting from a lack of social care.

According to the Department for Communities and Local Government, the extra money will mean up to 3,500 more people a week will leave hospital more quickly this winter, with the local authority putting in place carers and equipment and thereby freeing up hospital beds.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles said: “Social services have to be part of the solution to the high demand on hospitals at the moment. We know that they can help by getting people home more quickly when it is safe to do so once they have been discharged.

“And we also know that the best social care can prevent some people from having to go to A&E in the first place by supporting the elderly to live with dignity and independence at home.”

Official figures, released by NHS England in November, showed in October 96,564 “bed days” were wasted on patients who should have been discharged, representing a rise of around 20% compared with October 2013 and 35% compared to 2012.

The extra cash is on top of £700m the DoH has found for the NHS to help manage its winter pressures and comes ahead of the introduction in April of a £5.3bn Better Care Fund, aimed at encouraging the NHS and councils to enable people to live at home independently for longer.

Mr Pickles added: “From April our £5.3 billion Better Care Fund will start to transform the way we join up health and social care so that there aren’t separate systems and phone numbers for solving the same problems. It will prevent up to 160,000 A&E admissions and save over £500 million in the year ahead. But with hospitals under pressure in the cold weather this winter we have also found extra money to help out now.”

Minister for care and support Norman Lamb said: “This new funding means that every local authority now has extra money to help tackle the pressures on hospitals. We know the NHS is busier than ever before, which is why we’ve given a record £700m this winter for almost 800 more doctors, 4,700 more nurses and 6,400 more beds.

“We have also provided councils with an extra £25 million to councils to provide additional social care packages to help people move out of hospital. The NHS and local authorities are already preparing joint plans to work together better, keep people well and avoid hospital admissions. This new money will help speed up that work this winter.”