Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment she has made of the potential effect of her Plan for Patients on hospital bed capacity on the Isle of Wight.

No specific assessment has been made. However, ‘Our plan for patients’ and the National Health Service plan for winter resilience set out plans to increase capacity for winter 2022/23, including in the Isle of Wight. NHS bed capacity will be increased by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds to reduce waiting times for admission from accident and emergency and ambulance handover delays and improve ambulance response times. This is in addition to £150 million allocated to address ambulance service pressures in 2022/23 and a £20 million investment to upgrade the ambulance fleet. ‘Our plan for patients’ also announced a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund, to safely discharge people who are ready to leave hospital and increase bed capacity.