The Government shows a ‘striking poverty of ambition' on hospital discharge delays, MPs have said.

A new report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) urged Whitehall to do more to tackle the scale and cost of delays in discharging older patients from hospital.

The report revealed official data substantially underestimated the range of delays and the number of older patients affected.

It also found ‘unacceptable variation' in local performance on discharging patients and described the implementation of good discharge practice as ‘patchy'.

Poor sharing of patient information is also a significant barrier to improving performance, the report said.

Delays increase the level of care older people may need after leaving hospital, and undermine the financial sustainability of the NHS and local government, it added. 

The committee acknowledged local authorities were facing funding pressures but said this was not necessarily a barrier to making improvements.

‘NHS England shows a striking poverty of ambition in believing that holding delays to the current inflated level would be a satisfactory achievement,' the report concluded.

Professor Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive and director of health and social care at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, said: ‘It's clear we need to improve the way that patients are discharged from hospital, especially when they no longer need the same level of care.

‘Our social care guidance makes recommendations that will help make the move from hospital to home as painless as possible for patients,' she added.