Clause 4 - Liability to make delayed discharge payments
Community Care (Delayed Discharge etc.) Bill
4:30 pm
Ms Jacqui Smith (Minister of State, Department of Health; Redditch, Labour)
I start by welcoming you to the Chair, Mr. Conway. I am sure that we will continue to make good progress this afternoon, as we did this morning.
As the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) rightly emphasised, we are moving on to the provisions that implement the framework of incentives on which the legislation is based. I think that it is worth reiterating some of the points that we briefly touched on this morning, but which are pertinent to the way that the clause works, and to the overall framework.
As Opposition Members have emphasised, there has been success in reducing the levels of delayed discharges from our hospitals. That has been due to significant improvements in both the way that agencies work together, and in the amount of investment that the Government have made to ensure that such things happen. However, we are not satisfied. When 5,000 people are still trapped in hospital when they would most appropriately be cared for elsewhere, the system is not yet working properly. A certain complacency was demonstrated this morning, and I hope that we will not see it this afternoon.