Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that NHS services can meet additional demand in (a) the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin integrated care board and (b) England in winter 2024-25.

NHS England has written to integrated care boards (ICBs), trusts, and primary care networks to set out a national approach to 2024/25 winter planning. This builds on the priorities in the National Health Service’s planning guidance, and sets out the key steps to be taken to support the delivery of high-quality care for patients this winter.

The Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin ICB is undertaking an improvement programme that aims to better respond to the pressures of the demand upon the urgent and emergency care services. This is delivering changes to meet needs now, throughout winter, and sustainably for the future. There is a focus on the following areas:

• providing alternatives for patients rather than attending emergency departments;
• faster progress through emergency departments, improving performance against national waiting time standards;
• improving processes in inpatient wards to reduce delays for patients;
• coordinating and enabling more timely discharge, with more patients able to go home, in conjunction with the area’s local authorities; and
• a specific focus upon supporting frail older adults, to keep them well in their place of residence and minimise the time spent in hospital when an admission to hospital is required.