Patients will benefit from faster access to emergency treatment
following an injection of £500 million to free up hospital beds
through quicker discharge, which will also help reduce ambulance
handover times.
£300 million will be given to Integrated Care Boards to improve
bed capacity and £200 million for local authorities to bolster
the social care workforce, increasing capacity to take on more
patients from hospitals.
Local authorities and Integrated Care Boards - organisations that
bring the NHS together locally to improve health in the community
- will work together to agree on spending across their regions,
introducing tailored solutions which speed up discharge and
benefit patients in their area.
Allocations will be published in due course with payments to be
made in the coming weeks, following the announcement of the fund
earlier this year. A second tranche of funding will be
distributed in January 2023 delivering support across winter.
Speaking at the NHS Providers’ annual conference in
Liverpool the Health and Social Care Secretary
said:
“I am pleased to announce details of the fund which will be
provided to ICBs and local authorities to free up beds, at a time
when bed occupancy is at 94%.
“In line with our devolved and data-driven approach we will be
allowing local areas to determine how we can speed up the
discharge of patients from hospital.
“This might be through purchasing supportive technology boosting
domiciliary care capacity or physiotherapists and occupational
therapists to support recovery at home.
“We will also be looking closely at the impact of how funding is
used and using this data to inform future decisions around
funding”.
Local areas will be free to spend this money on initiatives which
will have the greatest impact in their area on reducing
discharges into social care, which in most areas will mean
prioritising home care. Funding may also be used to boost adult
social care workforce capacity, through staff recruitment and
retention, where that will help reduce delayed discharges.
Addressing the workforce for the first time since returning to
the role, the Health and Social Care Secretary set out his
priorities today (Wednesday 16 November) for the coming months to
ensure the health and care system continues to deliver for
patients.
Key areas of focus for the months ahead will be:
- Supporting the workforce including through more staff for NHS
111 and 999.
- Focusing on recovery plans across electives, urgent and
emergency care.
- Tackling the issue of delayed hospital discharge.
- Improving access to primary care.
- Ensuring a stronger future for health including maintaining
momentum on the New Hospital. Programme and investing in
technology to improve patient outcomes.
Minister of State for Care said:
"People should be cared for in the best place for them, but
discharge delays mean patients are spending too long in hospital.
“Our discharge fund will get more people cared for in the right
place at the right time. We're asking hospitals and the social
care system to work together to help patients and carers too, who
often take on a lot of the burden of caring when someone leaves
hospital.
“The discharge fund will boost the social care workforce and in
turn reduce pressures on the NHS and hospital staff, as it frees
up beds and helps improve ambulance handover delays.”
On tackling the Covid backlogs, the Health and Social Care
Secretary emphasised the importance of close working between the
Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England to reduce
variation and tackle wider recovery challenges.
Looking beyond the immediate challenges of this winter, he
reiterated the need to ensure a stronger future for health and
care including investment in NHS buildings.
He set out his commitment to prioritise hospitals built using
reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) as part of
transformation plans as well as the need to modernise the way NHS
buildings are constructed, moving away from bespoke designs by
individual trusts and towards standardised designs that can
streamline the approvals process and reduce construction time.
This will help deliver new hospitals more quickly with better
value for money, as part of the government’s commitment to
deliver 40 new hospitals by 2030.
He also set out the need to harness the opportunities of new ways
of working shown by the pandemic including use of the NHS app to
reduce pressures in primary care. From the end of the month
patients will be able to book their Covid vaccine via the NHS
app, reducing the burden on GP providers.
Closing his speech, he acknowledged the size of the collective
challenge the system as a whole faces heading into winter and his
commitment to working with the sector to build a more resilient,
healthier NHS for the long-term.
