Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to increase NHS capacity.

The National Health Service will receive an extra £5.4 billion over the next six months to support its response to COVID-19. This includes £478 million to continue the enhanced hospital discharge programme and increasing bed capacity. This includes an extra £1 billion to tackle the elective care backlog and more than £8 billion will be allocated for recovery in the next three years. This additional investment could provide approximately nine million additional checks, scans and procedures.

The NHS 10-point plan to manage emergency care demand and capacity includes providing ambulance trusts an extra £55 million to increase staff numbers ahead of the winter. The seasonal flu vaccination programme and COVID-19 booster vaccines for priority groups will also reduce pressure on NHS services by limiting the number of admissions to hospital services.