Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Steve Barclay]

I could not agree more, which is why this morning the Prime Minister and I were at University Hospital of North Tees, where it is effective on the ground. It is about looking at hospitals where such measures have been effective and are having an effect on the ground, such as in North Tees and at Maidstone Hospital, and how we take best practice from them. We then have to do what has sometimes been more difficult in the NHS, which is to scale those innovations and get them adopted across the piece.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

There are 165,000 vacancies in social care and there was nothing in the statement about how the Secretary of State will address them. Will he do that through better terms and conditions?

[Steve Barclay]

We are dealing with that through additional funding—the £500 million for this winter. That relates to the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) about the impact on the ground, which will be to give ICBs and local authorities discretion. Some of that £500 million is being spent on the workforce, including in social care, so there is discretion as to how they spend that. There is also the £2.8 billion of local authority and ICB funding that will be in place next year, and £4.7 billion the following year.