Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to identify suitable long-term placements for people who are detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 who could live in the community with additional support.
Answered by Maria Caulfield - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
Statutory guidance will be published for those being discharged from mental health inpatient settings soon. This will set out how National Health Service bodies and local authorities can work together to support the discharge process from hospital and ensure the right support in the community.
In July 2022, we published the Building the Right Support (BtRS) Action Plan, which sets out cross-government actions to strengthen community support and reduce reliance on mental health inpatient care for autistic people and people with a learning disability. The BtRS Delivery Board is overseeing implementation of the Action Plan and includes representatives from across Government and public services who are working together to drive faster progress, identifying new actions and mitigations as appropriate.
This year, we are investing an additional £121 million to improve community support as part of the NHS Long Term Plan, including funding for children and young people’s keyworkers.
The draft Mental Health Bill, published in June 2022, proposes the introduction of a new power, Supervised Discharge, which aims is to stop criminal justice patients detained under the Mental Health Act with specialised support needs from being in hospital unnecessarily. This will provide a route for these individuals to continue their care in a more appropriate and therapeutic setting, while appropriately managing the risks they may pose.
Meanwhile HM Prison & Probation Service, acting on behalf of my rt. hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Justice, takes decisions on applications for section 17 leave for criminal justice patients following a robust risk-based assessment. This ensures affected patients do not need to remain in hospital beds and can continue their rehabilitation in a community-based setting which balances the need to protect the public, whilst recognising the rights of patients to receive treatment under the Mental Health Act.
Asked by: Marquess of Lothian (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what detailed assessment they have undertaken of the potential impact on recruitment into the social care system of requiring that UK citizens must be earning at least £38,700 to sponsor foreign family members to get a family visa; how many social care positions are currently vacant in the UK; and what impact an under-staffed social care system with too few care beds will have on the ability of NHS hospitals to discharge patients in need of social care, and the consequent effect on (1) hospital waiting lists, and (2) A&E waiting times.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Secretary of State for the Home Department has committed to put estimates of the impact of these announcements in the House of Commons Library. This will be done in due course.
According to Skills for Care, the total number of vacancies in 2022/23 was 152,000, a decrease of 11,000 or 7% of vacant posts from 2021/22. It is important to note vacancies are not necessarily a good measure of workforce capacity or of levels of need in social care. Vacancies include posts that are vacant in the short term due to recent or anticipated staff turnover and posts created by employers who want to expand and grow their businesses rather than only roles needed to meet statutory entitlements.
This Government is investing an additional £600 million this year, and £1 billion next year through the Discharge Fund. This funding will enable the National Health Service and local authorities in England to reduce discharge delays, including by commissioning additional packages of care and support for rehabilitation and reablement.
In September, alongside £200 million to boost resilience in the NHS, we announced a £40 million fund, targeted at local authorities in the most challenged NHS systems in England. This fund will strengthen urgent and emergency care resilience and performance this winter by preventing avoidable admissions or by reducing discharge delays.
Asked by: Karin Smyth (Labour - Bristol South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been supported by hospital at home beds in each of the last 12 months.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The information requested is not collected centrally. NHS England publishes data on the capacity and occupancy rate of virtual wards, which is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/virtual-ward/
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answers of 20 November to Questions 2738 and 2739 on Intensive Care: Hospital Beds and Hospital Beds respectively, if she will make a comparative estimate of the number of NHS acute hospital beds (a) available and (b) required in winter 2023-24; how many and what proportion of the 5,000 additional beds that were promised have been deployed; and what her planned timeframe is for the deployment of the remainder of the 5,000 beds in each constituency.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Published data from NHS England shows that there were 99,067 total general and acute (G&A) beds available in October 2023, including 96,781 core beds and 2,285 escalation beds.
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core G&A bed base by 5,000 permanent staffed beds in 2023/24 compared to planned levels for 2022/23. This would increase the number of core beds to 99,500. As of October, the National Health Service has delivered 2,281 additional core beds. NHS England continues to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition this winter.
G&A bed numbers are expected to peak in January 2024 in response to expected demand. A breakdown of these additional beds by constituency is not available centrally.
Asked by: Ashley Dalton (Labour - West Lancashire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate she has made of the number of elective surgeries cancelled in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Official NHS England statistics show that between September 2023 and September 2024 (latest National Health Service published data) the total number of elective surgeries cancelled in England for non-clinical reasons was 76,021. Some common non-clinical reasons for cancellations by the hospital include ward beds being unavailable, surgeon or theatre staff being unavailable, or emergency cases needing the theatre.
Further information is available at the following link:
Asked by: Marquess of Lothian (Conservative - Life peer)
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.
Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
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.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS England publication of 20 January 2023 entitled Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services, what his planned timetable is for delivering 5,000 additional permanent beds; and what steps the Government is taking to progress delivery of those additional beds.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.
Asked by: Rob Roberts (Independent - Delyn)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the number of hospital beds for acute treatment.
Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Our Delivery Plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services set the ambition to increase the core general and acute bed base, above originally planned 2022/23 levels, by 5,000 sustainable, permanent beds in 2023/24. This takes the funded core bed base to over 99,000. NHS England in continuing to work with local systems and trusts to deliver this ambition.
Asked by: Rachael Maskell (Labour (Co-op) - York Central)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will develop a long term plan for managing winter pressures.
Answered by Andrew Stephenson - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Winter is a particularly challenging time for the National Health Service with demand for services increasing significantly with the onset of cold weather and flu. Our recovery plan, published on 30 January 2023, set out how we will improve urgent and emergency care services this winter and in future years by increasing hospital beds, scaling up virtual wards and delivering new ambulances.
This is all backed by a £1 billion dedicated funding to support capacity in urgent and emergency services this year, alongside a £250 million capital investment in hospital trusts and £200 million for ambulances services to increase ambulance hours on the road.
Asked by: Wes Streeting (Labour - Ilford North)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of (a) the total number of beds and (b) the number of occupied beds on virtual wards in England.
Answered by Will Quince
Published National Health Service data for September 2023 shows that virtual ward ‘bed’ capacity was 10,421, of which 6,807 were occupied.