The Government’s National Plan to End Homelessness is a significant step forward in recognising the crucial role our healthcare system must play in preventing and addressing homelessness. It reflects a growing understanding that good health and secure housing are inseparable, and that people facing homelessness experience serious, cumulative and sometimes extreme health harms when different parts of the system fail to work together.
We are particularly heartened by the Plan’s commitment to end the unacceptable practice of discharging people from hospital to the street. Pathway has been calling for this important and long overdue change and we are pleased to see the Government’s recognition that street discharge is a ‘deeply harmful outcome’. The Plan’s intention to improve the way existing funding streams are used to support intermediate care is a helpful first step. To turn this ambition into reality, we now need clear, concrete actions to secure adequate resources for specialist intermediate care, alongside transparent monitoring to track progress and ensure safe discharge for all.
The Plan’s commitment to embedding housing officers in hospital discharge teams is a first step in the integration of housing and health services, though it stops short of the truly multi-disciplinary approach recommended by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence. Specialist, clinically-led, multi-disciplinary hospital teams working in the Pathway Partnership Programme already model this more effective way of working, showing what is possible when expertise is brought together across agencies and when a patient’s housing need is identified from the moment of admission.
More broadly, we welcome the Government’s ambition to improve access to care and challenge the stigma people facing homelessness often experience, in alignment with the NHS 10-Year Plan for England. This commitment to preventative, integrated and tailored care is promising, and we look forward to seeing the detail of how this laudable vision will be delivered in practice.
There are also reasons for caution. Housing is the ultimate foundation to good health and the strategy overlooks key proven measures that would help to end homelessness, including a national expansion of Housing First, action to make rents affordable for people on the lowest incomes, and a firm commitment to building the necessary social housing for those most in need.
Alex Bax, Pathway CEO, said:
The Plan sets a positive direction at a time of rising homelessness and widening health inequalities. It recognises the importance of public services working together to prevent and end homelessness. We are delighted Government has committed to end the shameful practice of discharging hospital patients to the street. This should prevent many thousands of people every year from experiencing the devastating health consequences of homelessness. Implementing these wide-ranging proposals is now the challenge. We look forward to working with Government and our partners across the NHS to help them deliver the Plan. Done well, these changes should benefit some of the most vulnerable people in our society.