Rishi Sunak unveils emergency care scheme to cut NHS waiting times | Health

[ad_1]

Rishi Sunak pledges to rapidly reduce long wait times for NHS urgent care with the promise of thousands more beds, 800 new ambulances and the expansion of community care backed by a dedicated £1 billion fund.

The health service has been engulfed in its worst ever crisis, with urgent and emergency care in particular under unprecedented strain in recent months. The prime minister will describe his blueprint for solving problems as “ambitious and credible”.

However, the Guardian understands that the £1 billion earmarked fund that has been pledged to fund the strategy is not new money. It will come out of last year’s announced criticism of health and social care in a fall statement. Nor were there exact details about who would work on the new ambulances and beds.

In the two-year plan for England, the government and NHS England will prepare 800 new ambulances, including 100 specialist mental health vehicles, and 5,000 extra hospital beds.

A key component of the strategy is to expand urgent care in the community, moving people away from hospitals and seeing more treatment at home.

Emergency care units will open on the same day in every hospital with a major A&E. Ministers hope this measure will prevent thousands of people from staying in hospital each week.

There are also pilot plans for new ways of progressive care from the NHS, with patients receiving rehabilitation and physiotherapy at home in some cases. Over the weekend, the government said 3,000 “hospital at home” beds would be set up before next winter, with the aim of caring for around 50,000 people a month at home each month.

There is growing reliance on NHS stress relief virtual wards, which see patients treated from home while they are monitored by paramedics via daily visits or video calls.

Sunak will visit an A&E unit in the North East of England to highlight the new strategy. He will say: “Reducing NHS waiting times is one of my five priorities.” Urgent and emergency care faces serious challenges but we have an ambitious and credible plan to fix them.

“It will take time to get there, but our plan will shorten long waits by increasing the number of ambulances, staff and beds – stopping jams outside the emergency department, disinfecting and making sure patients are seen and discharged quickly.”

However, NHS leaders have expressed skepticism that initiatives such as creating more virtual wards to keep people out of hospital will succeed in reducing pressure while there is still a workforce crisis. There are currently 133,000 vacancies in England alone.

Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean, for free every morning of the week

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements, and content funded by third parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

“We urgently need to take action to address massive workforce shortages, staff burnout and burnout,” said Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive of NHS Providers.

“Without investing in staff, this plan will not make a difference,” said Patricia Marquis, director of the Royal College of Nursing in England.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The NHS has been at the mercy of a slow and short-term approach from the government in its response to the crisis facing emergency services this winter.

“The NHS needs the right numbers and mix of staff in place to really restore the performance of emergency care and other services in the long term.”

[ad_2]