NHS: Winter Crisis

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Wednesday 7th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness is quite right to highlight the issue of bed occupancy; it is very high. The service managed to get it down below 85% before Christmas but inevitably it has risen since then. There is a big improvement in delayed transfers of care; we need that to continue to happen, and it was welcome that the Secretary of State for local government announced more funding for social care so that we can increase those transfers into social care and free up space in hospitals.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, following the noble Baroness’s question about bed occupancy, it is absolutely true that in 30 of the last 70 days in the winter period occupancy has been above 95%, which is dangerous. Some hospitals are at 100%. Was that part of the winter plan that the Minister assures us was timely and thorough? Will he accept that the winter plans have now been compromised in the light of pressure on beds, lack of staff and the fact that at least 23 trusts are now on black alert, which means that they are under very severe pressure?

[Lord O’Shaughnessy]

I agree with the noble Baroness that bed occupancy is higher than we want it to be and in some hospitals it is far too high. The question, of course, is what we do about that. It necessitated the difficult decision, for which the Prime Minister apologised, to cancel non-urgent elective surgery. Happily, that has not been repeated and rolled forward into February. We think and hope that the situation with flu, in particular, has stabilised and that that will start to relieve the pressure. I absolutely understand the hard work that staff are having to put in under tremendous pressure and I know that we all appreciate that.