National Health Service providers are expected to begin planning for discharge at the point of admission, which should include practical arrangements, care requirements and the nature of home environment the person is being discharged to. This is particularly important for patients who have tested positive for COVID-19. The Hospital Discharge Service Requirements last published August 2020 provides further guidance on the discharge process, including to support conversations with patients, relatives and carers during their hospital stay. The Requirements are available at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/912199/Hospital_Discharge_Policy_1.pdf

Public Health England have provided additional guidance on stepdown of infection control precautions when discharging COVID-19 patients.

Regular Army Foundation College (Harrogate) Recruits Outflow During First six Weeks of Training from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 by Exit Reason.

Notes/Caveats

*Not Required for further Army Service - Queens Regulations code 9.411 apply.

1. Figures are for AFC (Harrogate) Trainees only.

2. Information is as recorded by the Army Administration Systems.

3. Exit reasons have been supplied by Army Recruitment Initial Training Command (ARITC). Exit reasons are based on the Queens Regulation paragraphs under which they have been discharged.

4. Figures have been rounded to 10 for presentational purposes; numbers ending in "5" have been rounded to the nearest multiple of 20 to prevent systematic bias.

5. Totals and sub-totals have been rounded separately and so may not appear to be the sum of their parts.

6. Recruits under the age of 18 may change their minds about joining the army after applying and are free to do so. (Recruits must serve 28 days before they are able to exercise this right).

It is our priority to ensure that everyone receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time. This includes ensuring people are discharged safely from hospital to the most appropriate place, and they receive the care and support they need.

Building on the commitments of the Adult Social Care Winter Plan, we are working with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the NHS to ensure that everyone due to be discharged to a care home has an up-to-date COVID-19 test result, with anyone who is COVID-positive being discharged to a setting that the CQC has assured is able to provide care and support for people who are COVID-positive.

The Government highly values the service of all members of the Armed Forces, including Commonwealth nationals and Gurkhas from Nepal. As part of specific Home Office immigration rules for the Armed Forces and their families, Commonwealth and Gurkha Service personnel who have served for at least four years on discharge are able to apply to settle in the UK. We do, however, recognise that settlement fees place a financial burden on Service personnel wishing to settle in the UK after service, and we are working with the Home Office to consider how we can offer greater flexibility for these individuals in future.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 29 September 2020 to Question 95005 to the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg).

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2020-09-24/95005

Nutrition assessment tools like the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool are used in hospitals and in the community to assess a person’s individual needs and can be used to develop a care plan.

There are no specific nutritional assessment or nutritional management tools for patients with COVID-19 either in hospital or in the community.

Building on the commitments of the Adult Social Care Winter Plan, we are working with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the NHS to ensure everyone discharged from hospital to a care home has an up-to-date COVID-19 test result and anyone testing positive is discharged to a designated setting that that meets a set of agreed standards to provide safe care for COVID-19 positive residents.

No care home provider will be required to admit a new or returning resident if they do not feel they can provide the appropriate care or isolation. The individual’s local authority should secure alternative appropriate accommodation and care for the required isolation period if needed.

On 7 October, NHS England announced £10 million of investment to establish a network of specialist clinics in England to support people suffering from the persistent effects of COVID-19 or ‘long COVID’.

These specialist clinics will support patients suffering from various symptoms of long covid. Every patient experiencing symptoms will undergo a physical and psychological assessment to help address the problems being faced. Further details on the location of these clinics will be announced shortly.

The National Health Service has also launched ‘Your Covid Recovery’, an online rehabilitation service that provides personalised support to patients for both their physical and mental health. The support offered by this service includes nutritional advice about eating well and the potential benefits of supplements such as vitamin D.

On 23 November, we brought forward our Wellbeing and Mental Health Support Plan for COVID-19 which includes a commitment, backed by £50 million, to boost capacity and support good quality discharge for mental health service users from inpatient settings. Guidance on effective approaches to rapid discharge will be made available in due course.

When we look at retention in the armed forces we are never complacent. We take continuous attitude survey responses very seriously indeed. Clearly, there are things we can do to improve the life of our service personnel, but the hon. Gentleman is wrong to suggest that retention is a problem; in fact, retention is improving quickly.

According to the latest figures released by the Ministry of Defence, four in 10 of our service personnel have actively searched for a job outside the service in the past 12 months. What does the Secretary of State think is driving that trend—is it low morale, low wages or poor accommodation? Or is it the fact that the Ministers over the past decade have not been on top of their brief?

Anyone experiencing symptoms can access a free test at a testing site or at home via the online booking portal or by calling 119. Our priority is to ensure that anyone with symptoms can get a test. During this period of very high demand in the context of constrained capacity and other demands on testing, we must necessarily apply a strict prioritisation approach, taking into account the latest publicly available evidence and clinical, scientific and economic rationale. For transparency the current priorities for testing have been published on GOV.UK.

The £588 million discharge fund does not include funding for National Health Service mental health trusts.

NHS financial arrangements for the remainder of 2020/21 include amounts for local systems to respond to COVID-19 and support for mental health discharges can be funded through monies available to local systems.

Separate discharge guidance for NHS mental health trusts is being developed in collaboration with NHS England and we will seek to publish this shortly.

It is our priority to ensure that everyone receives the right care, in the right place, at the right time. On 19 March, as part of our response to COVID-19, we published the ‘COVID-19: hospital discharge service requirements’. This guidance set out how we would continue to support the safe and timely discharge of people who no longer need to stay in hospital, using the ‘Discharge to Assess (D2A) model. This guidance was updated on 21 August.

People who are clinically ready are supported to return to their place of residence, where an assessment of longer-term needs takes place. For individuals whose needs are too great to return to their own home, suitable in-patient or residential care is arranged.

The exception to this is where a patient is discharged from hospital following a recent positive test for COVID-19. In this case, as set out in our Winter Plan, published on 18 September, we are implementing a designation scheme with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for premises that are safe for people leaving hospital who have tested positive for COVID-19.

People who are being discharged from hospitals to care homes must be tested for COVID-19 and should have their test result before they leave the hospital. If their test result is negative, they will be able to transfer directly from hospital to a care home. If their test is positive, they will only be able to transfer from hospital to an ‘assured’ premises. There will be a limited number of exceptions to this policy, to ensure that people are not prevented from accessing the care they need.

We made £1.3 billion funding available via the National Health Service to support the discharge process in March. As part of the £3 billion new funding announced for winter in July, an extra £588 million has been confirmed to continue enhanced discharge arrangements over winter.

The data is not held in the format requested.

The Department does not hold data on the number of patients who have been discharged from hospital into care homes having either not been tested for COVID-19 immediately prior to their move or having tested positive in each month to date since, and including, March 2020.

As set out in the Adult Social Care Action Plan on 15 April, all individuals are required to be tested prior to discharge from hospital to a care home, and no care home should be forced to admit residents if they do not feel they can provide the appropriate care.

We will continue to work closely with the sector to keep our policies and data under review.