Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to mitigate the impact of the increased cost of living on the NHS ahead of this winter.

The Government is mitigating the potential public health impacts of the increased cost of living on the National Health Service, such as the effect of cold homes. The Government has announced unprecedented support to protect households and businesses from high energy prices. The Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Relief Scheme are supporting millions of households and businesses with rising energy costs until April 2023. In addition, we have allocated £15 billion for the most vulnerable households.

As announced in ‘Our plan for patients’, we are addressing the immediate priorities for the NHS in winter 2022/23, through improving ambulance services and response times; creating additional capacity in hospitals; reducing the backlog in elective services and eliminating long waiting times for treatment; improving discharge from hospitals and reforming social care; and ensuring patients can access primary care and dental services.