Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of capacity pressures in secondary care, particularly at hospital front doors, including staffing levels and bed availability.

We continue to monitor the impact of winter pressures on the National Health Service over the winter months. The NHS has been preparing for winter this year with the development and thorough testing of winter plans. This includes the surge capacity and escalation plans in place across all NHS and urgent care services.

While pressure has remained high on acute hospitals, performance has been better than in previous years. Accident and emergency four-hour performance was 73.8% in December 2025, an improvement of 2.7% from 71.1%. Provisional data for December 2025 indicates that there were 101,200 General and Acute beds open for all acute trusts, 93,177 of which were occupied, a 92.1% occupancy rate.

There were 431,000 more accident and emergency attendances in year-to-date to December in 2025/26 compared to the same period in 2024/25, a growth rate of 2.1%. This is lower than the average annual growth rate of 3.9% seen between 2021/22 and 2024/25 but still represents an increase in pressure on accident and emergency departments. Growth in attendances at consultant-led type 1 accident and emergency departments was 1.8% in the year to date to December in 2025/26, greater than the average annual growth rate of 1.3% between 2021/22 and 2024/25.

The 10-Year Health Plan aims to expand urgent care capacity through Neighbourhood Health Services and virtual wards, enabling patients to receive care closer to home where clinically appropriate and easing pressure on hospitals.

The responsibility for staffing levels should remain with clinical and other leaders at a local level, responding to local needs, supported by guidelines by national and professional bodies, and overseen and regulated in England by the Care Quality Commission.