Bed Blocking Fines To Slap English Social Services With £49 Million Per Year Bill - Burstow

Paul Burstow MP, Liberal Democrat Spokesman on Older People, today released research showing that the bed blocking fines system in Labour's Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc) Bill will cost local councils in England a total of nearly £49million per year. On average, council tax in England would rise by £2.30 per household.

Subject to legislation, the fines will be introduced from April 2003. For every day an older person is in hospital and waiting to be discharged, the Government consultation proposed a fine for local authority social services departments of £120 per day in London and the South East and £100 per day in the rest of the England.

The worst affected regions will include:-

· The South East where fines will cost local councils £14.8million a year, and each household £4.37

· London where fines will cost councils £9.4million a year and each household £2.98

· The South West where fines will cost councils £6.2million a year and each household £2.91

Paul Burstow MP said:

"Fining already underfunded social services is not addressing the cause of the problem. Current inadequate budgets mean that social services can't afford to provide proper care for vulnerable older people.

"Fines for what is really a Government failure is typical of Ministers looking to shift the blame. Fining already overstretched social services departments will force councils either to cut services or increase council taxes. Services for children and mental health users are usually the first to be cut by local authorities desperate to avoid fines.

"Attempts to reduce delayed discharge are leading to an increase in emergency readmissions. Elderly people are forced out of hospital before they are well enough to go home, only to return within days as emergency cases.

"Until Ministers wake up to the scale of the crisis in both the home care and care home sectors, many elderly people will be victims of a `pass the parcel' between the NHS and social services."

ENDS

Notes to editors

Mr. Burstow: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what level the fines for (a) social services and (b) NHS trusts will be for (i) emergency readmissions and (ii) delayed discharges; and if he will make a statement. [74535]

Jacqui Smith: The consultation on reimbursement for delayed discharge closed on the 18 September. In the consultation document it was suggested that the reimbursement for delayed discharge should be £120 per day in London and the South East and £100 throughout the rest of England. The consultation document also suggested that there should be no charge for emergency readmissions since these would be treated as part of the same episode of care under the new financial flows regime due to be implemented from 2004. If a National Health Service trust discharges a patient too early, they will face the risk that the patient will be readmitted, and the hospital will face the additional costs it incurs for this readmission.

· Currently there are no organisations supporting the plan to fine social services departments. The Welsh Assembly and Scottish Executive have decided to tackle the problem of delayed discharge with investment of £17million rather than fines. In Scotland, the most recent initiative alongside investment into care home and home care services has been a special learning network and a national information bank. The learning network will provide a forum for senior staff working in health, housing and social services to learn about initiatives that have been effective in tackling delayed discharge in other areas. In a Health Select Committee hearing in July 2002, Jacqui Smith admitted to the chair of the select committee David Hinchcliffe MP that many people within the Department of Health were opposed to fining councils for delayed discharges. (HoC Health Committee, Delayed Discharges 3rd Report of Session 2001-02, Volume II, 19th July 2002, EV215 Para 667)

· Mr Milburn said that the fining system was based on the 'Swedish Model'. In the Swedish reforms of health and social care, responsibility for care and for expenditure were shifted away from more centralised government to local government. Parts of the taxation system were shifted the same way. In Sweden there is now a local income tax both on the local council level and on the regional council level rather than a centralised tax based system.

· As a further part of this package, regional income taxes were reduced and the local income taxes were increased. All this took place in 1992. Ten years on and the Swedish Government has taken stock and has changed the law so that the hospital doctor must obtain a commitment from the GP to a community medical care and treatment plan, before the penalty clock starts ticking. There have also never been any targets set by the Swedish Government in the reduction of delayed discharges from hospital.