People generally recover better at home, surrounded by family, friends and familiar surroundings. Our Home First approach focuses on supporting people to leave hospital as soon as they no longer need acute care, with the right support in place to maximise independence and recovery.
During 2025/26, we reviewed hospital discharge pathways to better understand the causes of discharge delays and identify opportunities to improve outcomes. We continued to strengthen our integrated health and social care approach, ensuring people receive timely, strengths-based assessments and access to the right support at the right time.
Where appropriate, people are supported through reablement services to regain skills, confidence and independence before longer-term care is considered. When reablement is not sufficient to meet a person's needs, social care teams work closely with individuals, families and carers to assess longer-term support options and ensure care arrangements are proportionate and least restrictive.
A key focus has been ensuring there is sufficient community-based support available to help people return home safely, including home care, reablement, technology-enabled care and support from families, carers and voluntary sector partners. Through multidisciplinary working, we have strengthened decision-making, promoted independence and reduced reliance on more intensive forms of care wherever possible.
We have also taken steps to strengthen practice by reinforcing Home First principles, improving the use of Technology Enabled Care and enhancing approaches to mental capacity assessments.
While progress has been made, challenges remain. Rising demand, increasing complexity of need and pressures within the care market continue to affect the pace at which people can return home. Supporting a sustainable community care market and expanding reablement capacity will remain key priorities in the year ahead.