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Health secretary Andrew Lansley has announced a £70m investment in support packages which will help people regain their independence after they return home from hospital.
Primary care trusts are to receive funding from November so the new services should be in place by spring next year.
From next April the money will be spent on supporting people in the first six weeks after they leave hospital and could be used for adapting homes or providing drop-in services.
And speaking to the Conservative conference, Lansley said the funding will be enough to support more then 35,000 people over the next seven months.
Lansley told the Birmingham audience: "Too many patients don't get the seamless, effective service they should when they leave hospital. They leave an environment in which they have been cared for around the clock to go home, sometimes alone, with no help.
"Too often they end up back in hospital because they haven't had help readjusting to life at home.
"In fact, we've seen a 50 per cent increase in the number of emergency readmissions in the 10 years from 1998. We need to do more to prevent this from happening."
Lansley told the conference that the sick will not be made to pay for "Labour's debt crisis".
"But because we have made our commitment to the NHS, that doesn't mean we sit back and put more of taxpayers' money into an unreformed system," the health secretary said.
"Labour's debt crisis means we must look carefully at all our public services."
He continued: "If we change nothing, nothing will change. Change is what is needed."
From next year, Lansley announced that surveillance for hospital superbugs will be extended.
He told the audience that his department has already begun published weekly data on MRSA and C-difficile but added that he wants to go further because "patients must expect to be kept safe from harm in hospital".
Concluding, Lansley said the new mantra for NHS patients should be: "No decision about me, without me."
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