Where the NHS has issued an assessment notice to a local authority (so as to require the local authority to assess a patient’s care and support needs to facilitate a transfer of care), it must also give written notice to the local authority of the proposed date of the patient’s discharge notwithstanding that it included the proposed discharge date in the assessment notice. This is known as a discharge notice and its purpose is to confirm the discharge date as it either may not have been previously known at the time of the issue of the assessment notice or may have subsequently changed since the assessment notice was issued.