NHS Winter Pressures

Chris Grayling Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

In terms of what is different, there is the block booking that will enable residential care to put the workforce in place and release the delayed discharge of the 13,000 patients who are in hospital but medically fit to be discharged. The accelerated release of those patients will help those at the front door, where the spike in flu is so acute. That is what we are doing; we are responding to what health leaders have said is the key intervention we can take. Of course, that is not being done in isolation. The point is that that is coming on top of the £500 million announced during the autumn statement and is to provide further capacity, recognising the significant pressure that the system is under.

[Chris Grayling (Epsom and Ewell) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the fact that this is not purely an English issue but one affecting whole systems across the western world. I welcome many aspects of what he said, and I am grateful to staff at Epsom Hospital and those in the ambulance service in my constituency. So much of the time of those paramedics is spent taking frail elderly people from care homes to A&E where, frankly, they probably should not be. What steps can he take to divert some of those frail and elderly people from A&E to take some of the pressure off and get them to an environment where they will be much better looked after?

[Steve Barclay]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is where virtual wards have potential significant benefits in both demand management—avoiding elderly, frail patients coming to emergency departments in the first place—and releasing capacity in hospitals. The virtual ward at Watford General Hospital, equivalent to an additional ward of the hospital, is able to release patients with the comfort of knowing that they are still under supervision. Their medical information is being tracked and monitored and they get a daily phone call from a nurse. They also know that, if they need to come back to the hospital, they can do so much more quickly. That gives patients the comfort and confidence to recover at home, which is often where they want to be. Indeed, patient satisfaction from that trial at Watford was over 90%.