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 increase NHS capacity in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.

The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will recover elective services and increase capacity in England over the next three years. Supported by £8 billion, the NHS will increase elective activity, improve productivity, embed new models of care and technologies and empower patients with information and support.

In the Midlands, NHS England and NHS Improvement are providing specific support to high volume specialties via pathway improvement initiative and best practice programmes such as the Getting it Right First Time programme (GIRFT). In the Black Country and West Birmingham Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), capacity is being increased through the use of digital care and flexible working between teams and trusts, while building diagnostic capacity. The CCG has opened two new community diagnostic centres and added additional capacity by working with private sector providers.

The University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has added additional theatres to Solihull Hospital to increase the number of elective procedures and added two wards to each of the Heartland, Good Hope and Queen Elizabeth hospitals. At Solihull and Queen Elizabeth hospitals, enhanced post-operative care units have been established, reducing the need for intensive therapy units to provide complex operations.

In the Coventry and Warwickshire CCG, theatre capacity will be optimised through protected elective theatres and day surgery units. The CCG will also use virtual appointments where appropriate to increase efficiency for those patients requiring face-to-face consultations. Through increased utilisation of day case and outpatient procedures in accordance with GIRFT standards, the CCG will release capacity for the most complex cases and cancer patients.