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Measures to reduce hospital admissions and enable timely discharge from hospital will only be viable if local authority services are "adequately and robustly resourced," the Local Government Association has said.

In its written evidence to the House of Commons health select committee inquiry into delayed discharges, the LGA said that supporting people in the community requires significant funding.

"The funding shortage that faces personal social services is not caused by the need to support people for the few weeks after they leave hospital, but by the need to fund the preventive services that keep people from needing hospital in the first place," states the evidence.

Local housing authorities and housing associations have an important role to play in helping to prevent inappropriate hospital admissions, says the LGA. And housing staff have a key role in assisting with appropriate and timely discharge from hospital, and in organising adaptations that help people to remain in their own homes.

In addition, the underlying reasons for the growing shortage of personal social services staff must be addressed if authorities are to be able to deliver the services that older people need to lead independent lives, said the LGA.

In its written evidence, the Association of Directors of Social Services told the committee that looking at delayed discharge in isolation was a mistake, and that the pressures seen in this part of the acute health system are part of the pressures across related areas, with solutions only possible from a "whole system approach".

The ADSS made a number of recommendations. It suggested that the "proper fit" between health funding and local authority funding for social care be reconsidered urgently as a matter of financial planning.

"There is no equivalent to the NHS Plan in the social care environment that would enable the comprehensive spending review to create a funding environment to support joint plans," it states.

In addition, consideration should be given to establishing an agreed programme management system for delayed discharge, to be established across the whole system involved in providing services for older people, states the evidence. And community-based rehabilitation workers should be established to work with social services, specialist home care workers and primary care teams to support care-at-home services.