Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions his Department has had with local authorities in Greater Manchester on increased attendances in A&E over the winter and delayed discharges.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State meets NHS England on a weekly basis and discusses a wide range of topics, including accident and emergency (A&E) performance data. Monitor, the Care Quality Commission, and the NHS Trust Development Authority also have oversight of trust A&E performance, and are involved in these meetings.

On the back of a strong economy the Government has made £700 million – the highest ever figure – available to the NHS specifically to help with winter pressures. The first tranche of this money was made available earlier than ever.

Local plans to spend this money provide for nearly 8,800 extra staff and almost 6,500 extra beds. Over £25 million is going towards increasing access to general practitioners (GPs), including later and weekend appointments. £50 million will help ambulance services meet rising demand for emergency cases and a separate fund of £250 million will support an extra 100,000 operations so people can be seen quicker and before they need to be admitted as an emergency case.

This money will also support a range of local initiatives to improve urgent and emergency care including seven day pharmacy services, improvements to NHS 111 and GP out of hours services, short stay units for elderly patients and improvements to hospital discharge processes.

Across Greater Manchester £30 million has been provided with local plans for this to fund over 70 doctors, 300 nurses and 200 extra beds. Clinical commissioning groups in Greater Manchester, as system leaders, are working with NHS England and local partners including local authorities to implement local winter initiatives.