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Sunday 23 November 2008
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Leaving hospital

Delayed Discharges

DCC CrestSouth West Penisular Strategic Health Authority logo.

The Community Care (Delayed Discharge etc) Act 2003 was fully implemented from 5th January 2004.

This Act aims to strengthen joint working, improve discharge planning and promote the timely provision of services for people ready for discharge from acute hospital care. The aim is to encourage and reinforce good practice and ensure patients receive the right care in the right place at the right time.

This Act is not age related and applies to all delays in assessment and service provision for adults from acute hospital care.  

The Department of Health states,

  • "A delayed transfer of care occurs when a patient is ready for transfer from an acute hospital bed, but is still occupying such a bed".

The Act has a number of key characteristics:

  • It places certain standard times on Social services to commence assessments and to obtain resources to enable discharge
  • It places obligations on Acute Trusts to provide adequate notice of the need for SSD involvement and of date of discharge
  • It makes it a requirement that there is a multidisciplinary agreement that the person is ready to be discharged.

At present this legislation only applies to patients in acute beds. However a decision has been made that within the South West Peninsula the reporting and notification process will cover community hospital settings by the Autumn of 2004.

Acute care does not include:

  • care relating to conditions to do with mental health or learning disabilities
  • maternity care
  • intermediate care
  • care provided for recuperation/rehabilitation
  • palliative care

The South West Peninsula Strategic Health Authority policy on delayed discharges image - PDF icon (214KB - pdf help) has been agreed by all the NHS organisations and Social Services in the Peninsula and sets out the details of how this Act will operate in our area.


See also

If you have any queries about how the Community Care (Delayed Discharges etc.) Act affects you as a service user, a carer or a professional please refer to the above South West Peninsula policy in the first instance. Otherwise


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