Clause 4 - Liability to make delayed discharge payments
Community Care (Delayed Discharge etc.) Bill
4:30 pm
Mr Simon Burns (West Chelmsford, Conservative)
I assure the Minister that there is no complacency among Opposition Members about what is going on.
The Minister talks about a reduction in the number of delayed discharge patients. As she will remember
from earlier debates, the figure increased to over 7,000 in 2000–01. She also fails to mention the equally important increase of the large number of emergency readmissions of patients aged over 75. For the first quarter of 2001–02, the figure was 29,878 patients. By the fourth quarter of that year, it had risen to almost 31,500. There is a danger that that will increase as a result of fines.