National Health Service

Part of First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 10 October 2024.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of John Swinney John Swinney Scottish National Party

I acknowledge the challenges that Mr Sarwar puts to me. He knows from our exchanges in previous weeks that the issue of delayed discharge occupies a significant proportion of my time and the attention of the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, because it is at too high a level and is too high for the start of winter. I am deeply concerned about that issue.

We are working with individual partnerships to reduce the level of delayed discharge in different parts of the country. There is significant variation around the country: some parts of the country have very low numbers of patients who are in hospital but who could be in other care settings or at home, whereas those numbers are too high in other parts of the country.

I assure Mr Sarwar that deep and intense work is going on with individual partnerships to reduce levels of delayed discharge and to ensure that the objective that he puts to me, which is one that I want to deliver, can be achieved as we approach winter.