Meeting of the Parliament 22 January 2015
The task force will report when it has reached its conclusions. As I said to Malcolm Chisholm, the interim report is due soon, and I am happy to bring the task force’s final conclusions to Parliament. It is important that we politicians listen to the experts, particularly on issues such as seven-day services, and that we do not assume that we know better than them. I hope that all parties in the chamber will accept that.
To go back to delayed discharge, evidence tells us of a functional decline that can start after 72 hours of someone being ready for discharge, and that the decline can get rapidly worse over time. Therefore, the six-week target that we inherited was always too long and the four weeks that we have now is still too long. In the majority of cases, two weeks will be too long. That is why we have reached agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that we will work to discharge the vast majority of patients within 72 hours of their being clinically ready for discharge. To help to achieve that, this week I announced a further £100 million over three years to be invested in integrated partnerships through the NHS, to help to reduce the number of people waiting to be discharged from hospital.
The funding will be used to support health boards and local authorities to deliver good-quality care and support for people at home or in a homely setting.