Classification: Official
Publication reference: PRN00151

To:

• Integrated care board (ICB) chief executives
• Local authorities’ chief executives

cc.

• NHS England regional directors
• Regional and ICB system control centre leads
• All NHS acute, mental health and community foundation trust and trust chief executives

Dear Colleagues

Discharge funding for step down care – daily reporting SitRep

Following Friday’s publication of the additional hospital discharge fund, which is designed to increase capacity in post-discharge care and support improved discharge performance, patient safety, experience and outcomes, we are writing to confirm the capacity monitoring arrangements through an additional SitRep covering the period of funding.

This additional SitRep will allow the identification of additional capacity in each system and the utilisation and impact it is having on acute capacity and flow. It will also help reconcile the strategic financing arrangements which are currently being finalised and help local areas understand how their relative impact compares to other systems.

Completion

• SitRep completion will be required at integrated care board level daily, with weekends being reported each Monday. Arrangements are being put in place for this to be captured via Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS). A template of the metrics to be collected are attached and we ask that integrated care boards use this to put mechanisms in place to begin collecting this information from this week, which you will be able to submit when the SDCS portal is operational.
• The SitRep will be required to be submitted each day by no later than 16:00 for all eligible patients as at 08:00 that morning. This will allow for the necessary reconciliation of patients moved in and out of these facilities across the day.

Monitoring

• Integrated care boards and Regions will need to put in place appropriate oversight processes to ensure purchased capacity is being utilised. Nationally, oversight of the additional capacity will be monitored through The National Strategic Oversight and Delivery Group with regions at 11:00 each day, and weekly on Mondays at the Discharge Board chaired by Lesley Watts (and attended by regional discharge leads).

Next steps

• Integrated care boards should immediately begin implementing processes for the collation and monitoring of data in this SitRep through their System Control Centres.
• We ask that integrated care boards identify the relevant nominated person(s) to assign the SCDS collection to and return their contact details (name, organisation and email address) no later than 12:00 on Wednesday 18 January 2023 to their regional operations centre for regional collation to the national operations centre no later than 17:00 on Wednesday 18 January 2023.
• Further guidance on the SDCS submission will be sent out when the collection by this route is ready.

I would like to thank you and your teams for your continued hard work improving discharge through the health and care system and ultimately the outcomes for the patients we serve.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah-Jane Marsh, National Director for Urgent and Emergency Care and Deputy Chief Operating Officer, NHS England.