NHS Winter Pressures

Daisy Cooper Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

First, I am very happy to write to my right hon. Friend with further details. For the benefit of the House, in relation to the £500 million announced in the autumn statement, local authorities gave the Department and NHS England their data returns on Friday. We will have that data, which I will be able to share more specifically in relation to the £500 million. The £250 million for NHS England announced today is for very urgent delivery into systems and that will be going out extremely quickly.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

NHS leaders have today told the Health Services Journal that the Government have just seven to 10 days to get the additional funding to discharge hospital patients to the frontline for it to make any difference whatever. The NHS Confederation has said that the next three months in the NHS will likely be defined by critical incidents being declared. Will the Secretary of State promise that the extra funding will reach the frontline in the next seven to 10 days? Will he please finally declare a national critical incident, so that we can mobilise every single bit of our NHS to save lives and save the NHS?

[Steve Barclay]

The very purpose of today’s announcement—I have made it on the first day that Parliament is back—is to give that urgent uplift in funding to local authorities and ICBs so that they can act now, knowing that that funding is available. They have the additional £500 million, which is ramping up as well. That is part of a wider package of measures—NHS England putting in community support with 7,000 more beds—but the purpose is to recognise the very real immediate pressure the frontline has been under. It also needs to be viewed as something that other healthcare systems across the globe have faced: a very sudden and very significant spike in flu seven times higher than last month and 100 times what it was last year.