Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what action is being taken to reduce waiting times in A&E departments in NHS England, following the publication of A&E Attendances and Emergency Admissions figures for October which found that nearly 30 per cent of patients waited four hours or more to be assessed and nearly 45,000 patients waited for more than 12 hours for a bed following admission.

Under our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, we are taking a range of measures to improve patient flow through hospital and reduce waiting times in accident and emergency departments. These include the delivery of 5,000 more staffed, permanent beds this year compared to 2022/23 plans, supported by £1 billion of dedicated funding. This is alongside a further £1.6 billion of funding over two years to support the National Health Service and local authorities to ensure timely and effective discharge from hospital. We are also improving hospital discharge processes by establishing ‘Care transfer hubs’ in every hospital ahead of winter, alongside scaling up the use of virtual wards by an additional 3,000 beds, with over 10,000 beds now available nationally.

A copy of the plan is attached.