Since 2011, almost four million hospital bed days have been lost to the NHS due to problems securing social care, Age UK has revealed.
In 2016/17 alone, 954,799 hospital bed days were lost due to an inability to access social care, with an excess cost of £173 million excluding equipment and adaptations.
Over the period there has been a trend towards more older people staying in the community through home care rather than going into care homes and nursing homes, but the number of bed days lost have continued to soar by 209 per cent.

Official figures released by the Office for National Statistics have shown that unemployment is at 4.3 per cent, the lowest since 1975.
The figures also show that there are now 32.10 million people in work, 317,000 more than last year.
The figures are as a result of increases in full-time and permanent work, and in the last year there are 20,000 fewer people relying on zero hour contracts.

Northamptonshire County Council’s Cabinet is set to approve starting consultation on budget savings totalling £9.6 million soon.
The authority has been facing a severe financial challenge due to an unprecedented demand for local services and reducing levels of central government funding.
Last month, the county council launched a campaign calling on the government to review the funding model for local authorities to better reflect today’s population and demand pressures.

Plans to focus funding on increased outreach services for children and families in Cambridgeshire have been given the green light by councillors.

A revised plan for the delivery of a new and fairer system for providing early years health services for children and families in Birmingham has been published.

A state of the art operations centre which brings together some of Bristol’s critical support services has opened in Bristol.

The government has pledged £16 million to projects that tackle drug and alcohol dependency and support children in care.

West Yorkshire Combined Authority has submitted a bid of over £200 million of government investment and devolved powers in the government’s autumn budget in November.

CCS is taking control of the buying power of the public sector to reduce the cost to the public purse of purchasing mobile voice and data services.

Plans to cap benefits for those in supported housing by the government could fall short of actual costs by £80 per week, research shows.
Rethink Mental Illness has examined how the cap would affect people with mental illness living in supported housing. In some cases, it found that the government’s estimates were £80 a week lower than the actual cost.
The charity warns that this will force local authorities to provide a local ‘top up’ fund to those who are vulnerable, and cause a significant hardship for those in need of the greatest level of support.