Responding to the Public Accounts Committee report on the discharge of older patients, Janet Morrison – Chief Executive of Independent Age, who gave evidence to the Committee – said:
“The PAC have shown that the NHS can and should be more ambitious in tackling this problem. The NHS – working closely with social care departments in local councils - need to show greater urgency in tackling poor discharge practice, and the Department for Health should be insisting this happens. It is not acceptable, as Simon Stevens has suggested, that it will take five years to resolve a problem that blights the lives of thousands of older people."