Care Bill [HL]

My Lords, I shall be brief since the hour is getting late. This amendment makes a very important point, though it may be better in guidance. One of the problems is that the pinch point is always A&E, and getting patients out is really difficult. At the moment, there is tokenism in planning discharge. It needs to be much more embedded in trying to predict people’s needs and having things in place. Until discharge planning really is part of looking ahead at the aims for the patient we are still going to have backlogs, because we are still going to be waiting for somebody to come in and do something.