FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 5.9.25 

MPs meet to discuss what the NHS can do to help end homelessness 

  • Danny Beales MP will chair a parliamentary roundtable on the role of healthcare in ending homelessness on Tuesday 9th September. 
  • People with experience at the sharp end of healthcare for people facing homelessness, including a specialist homelessness GP and her former patient, will shine a light on the opportunity to end homelessness through healthcare in the government’s forthcoming Homelessness Strategy, in this special event convened by Pathway, the homeless and inclusion health charity.  
  • Tangible investment in specialist services is required to end the unsafe practice of discharges to the street (over 4,200 last year), and support the Government’s shift in care from hospital to the community. 
  • With the government’s latest statistics revealing a 20% year on year rise in rough sleeping, these evidence-based interventions are urgently needed to drive homelessness down. 

As the Government moves towards publication of its Cross-Government Homelessness Strategy, MPs are meeting at a roundtable convened by Danny Beales MP to set out how the strategy presents a crucial opportunity to tackle homelessness through action in the NHS. With the role of Minister for Homelessness remaining empty, MPs will hear about examples of good practice that can prevent and end people’s homelessness. 

Pathway, the leading homeless and inclusion health charity, will showcase evidence-based interventions that can help deliver a reduction in homelessness, including ending the unsafe and cruel practice of discharges from hospital to the street:  

  • The life changing work of Pathway’s expert hospital homelessness teams underlines the need to scale up specialist teams to support patients facing homelessness across the hospital network.  
  • The charity will also point to the urgent need for investment in specialist intermediate care to ensure that people being discharged from hospital have somewhere safe to recover, with support to find long-term accommodation.  
  • Finally, MPs will hear about the importance of recording patients’ housing status in NHS data to inform effective planning and provision of services. 

Dr Danielle Williams, GP and Clinical Lead for St George’s Hospital Homeless Inclusion Team, will talk about the expert multidisciplinary work which has cut costly readmissions to acute care, saved bed space and achieved a 60% reduction in the number of patients returning to rough sleeping. Operating under Pathway’s hospital Partnership Programme, the St George’s team has saved the NHS money and made a transformative difference in the lives of people facing homelessness.  

Dr Willliams explains: “I cannot over emphasise how important our holistic person-centred care is, and how multidisciplinary working has made such a difference to supporting our patients. Spreading this approach across hospitals will make a massive difference in tackling homelessness.”  

Matthew, a Pathway volunteer joining the roundtable, has shared his personal experience of being supported out of homelessness by the St George’s team: “Previously discharged repeatedly from hospitals with no support, I had no voice, no direction. The support I received from the St George’s Homeless Inclusion Team, who understood all my needs, completely changed my life”.  

Matthew’s experience of being discharged from hospital to the street is shared by around 4,200 people a year1. 

Cindy Fischer, Senior Manager for NHS North East London, and Beverly Gachette, Strategic Commissioner for the London Borough of Hackney, will brief the roundtable on the importance of commissioning intermediate care and its critical role in ending discharge to the street. Intermediate care provides short-term places for people to stay after discharge from hospital, enabling recovery in a safe, supported environment. It is backed by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and can save the NHS 5,200 per patient2. There is a postcode lottery in the provision of intermediate care for people facing homelessness; greater investment would free up vital hospital bed space, reduce costly readmissions to A&E and prevent homelessness.  

Theo Jackson, Research and Data Lead at Pathway, will brief MPs on the third key intervention in the healthcare system required to tackle homelessness: recording patients’ housing status in NHS data. Currently people experiencing homelessness are often invisible to commissioners planning services, invisible to national decision makers when making policy, and invisible when services are held to account for improving outcomes for the sickest in our society3. The introduction of the routine recording of housing status is a low cost, high impact reform that would not only bring transparency and accountability, but also support strategic, cost-effective commissioning of the intermediate care services essential to tackling homelessness. 

This roundtable comes soon after Pathway delivered an open letter to Keir Starmer signed by 1,000 clinicians and frontline homelessness workers, urging an end to the unsafe and inhumane practice of discharging patients from hospital to the street – the harsh reality faced by around 4,200 people a year.   

The government’s recently published NHS Ten Year Plan focuses on a shift in care from hospital to the community, and on illness prevention. The bold plan has the potential to address the severe health inequalities faced by people experiencing homelessness, and to help shift the dial on homelessness. To make this a reality, the Government must now use the Cross-Government Homelessness Strategy to implement the key interventions in the healthcare system required to address the needs of people facing homelessness  

Alex Bax, Chief Executive of Pathway said: 

“The government’s recently published NHS 10-Year Plan, made vital recognition of the poor health and early deaths of people facing homelessness as an ‘intolerable injustice’. The government must now seize the opportunity presented in the Cross-Government Homelessness Strategy to bring the change that will address both these extreme health inequalities and help to make homelessness a thing of the past. Our experience and research demonstrate that by making Inclusion Health a priority in the frontline work of the NHS, not only will huge financial pressures on acute care be reduced, but the system change needed to prevent and end the homelessness that ruins lives be propelled forward. Investment in specialist homelessness services makes sound economic sense, supports the shift in healthcare from hospital to the community and saves lives.” 

ENDS 

Notes to editors 

  1. Independent article on discharge from hospital to the street here  
  1. Alma Economics analysis on intermediate care here 
  1. Health Data policy paper here 
  1. NICE guidelines on Integrated health and social care for people experiencing homelessness here 
  1. St George’s Homelessness Inclusion Team Evaluation Report 2025 here 
  1. Latest Pathway Partnership Programme Report here. 
  1. Pathway press release on delivery to Keir Starmer of open letter on ending street discharge here 
  1. Pathway is the leading homeless and inclusion health charity. We work with the NHS to improve healthcare for people experiencing homelessness and deep social exclusion. Our work focuses on developing and implementing evidence-based models of care, supporting specialist professionals, and influencing public policy to ensure health services play their part in ending homelessness. 
  1. For media enquiries, including interviews, please contact Steph Sykes on 07967 100 404 or stephanie.sykes@pathway.org.uk or Dee O’Connell on 07989 396 320 or dee.oconnell@pathway.org.uk