Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government how they are supporting the NHS to build additional capacity over winter, in light of pressures including high numbers of patients being admitted with winter viruses.

A range of measures are in place to support National Health Service capacity over winter. NHS winter planning started earlier this year than in previous years. Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition in to increase the core general and acute (G&A) bed base by 5,000 permanent beds above originally planned 2022/23 levels. A copy of the plan is attached.

The latest published core G&A beds figures show over 3,700 additional core beds are now in place. The peak of total G&A bed numbers, encompassing both core and escalation beds, will depend on demand pressures, including from respiratory illnesses such as flu. This is alongside £200 million of additional funding to ambulance services this year to grow capacity and improve response times.

In July 2023, NHS England wrote to integrated care boards, trusts and primary care networks to set out a national approach to 2023/24 winter planning and the key steps to be taken across all parts of the system to meet the challenges expected from winter pressures.