Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help extend access to virtual wards to (a) avoid admission to hospital and (b) speed up discharge.

We are continuing to expand services to treat patients outside of hospitals when they have urgent needs, helping to prevent avoidable hospital admissions and speed up discharges. This includes using virtual wards which have benefited more than 240,000 people across the country so far. The expansion of these innovative services is allowing people to get the specialist care they need safely, and in the comfort of familiar surroundings.

A new virtual wards operational framework by NHS England sets out the further action being taken to improve access to virtual wards. The framework is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/virtual-wards-operational-framework/