Posted on: 25 January 2023
25 January 2023
The following sets out the work underway across West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (an integrated care system) to explain our approach on the recently announced funding to support people leaving hospital i.e., discharge.
Everyone across our local places (Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District) is working extremely hard to ensure that people who no longer need inpatient treatment are discharged from hospital safely.
There are two funding allocations. Each is set out below, alongside the approach we have agreed to take across West Yorkshire.
£500m adult social care discharge fund
In December 2022, the Government announced there would be £500m available to support interventions that best support people leaving hospital to the most appropriate location for their ongoing care. These interventions are designed to free up hospital beds and so improve the flow of people through the healthcare system.
For West Yorkshire, the allocation is £23.6m. Local places (NHS and local authorities) have submitted plans to NHS England for how they plan to use this funding.
This includes, for example, plans to provide more home or domiciliary care services; assistive technologies and equipment to enable people to recuperate in their own homes, residential placements; and increase workforce capacity through retention and recruitment schemes.
Our plans will continue to focus on what good hospital discharge feels like for people, their families, and carers, centred on the principle of ‘home first.’
The funding will end on the 31 March 2023, and any further support will need to be allocated from local places and / or the organisation - or in some cases the person receiving direct care (dependant on their individual financial circumstances).
£200m revenue fund for step down care beds
In addition to the adult social care discharge fund set out above, a new fund has been announced specifically to support step down care beds and packages of care (PoC). This fund means access to up to an additional £8.6m for West Yorkshire.
This money will be used to purchase packages of care (PoC) capacity plus associated clinical support for people who no longer need to be in hospital and who cannot be discharged from hospital through existing routes.
This is short-term funding that ends on 31 March 2023. Our local places are building on the work already in place, and funding additional capacity to ensure local people receive care in the most appropriate way.
This will also involve looking at sustainable ways to improve health outcomes for people and system flow, in the short and long-term. In some cases, this may mean funding more hospice care, providing packages of care for a longer time, further support for the independent care sector and potentially care homes to ensure the care is there for people.