The Health and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay, has announced funding for 900 new hospital beds and for the development/expansion of urgent treatment centres and same day emergency care services to relieve winter pressures and help cut waiting lists.
The £250m of capital funding will be split between 30 Trusts across all regions of England (see full list below) and is part of the NHS Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan, published in January, which set out plans to provide over 5,000 additional permanent, fully staffed hospital beds in total. These new 900 beds are part of this commitment.
Schemes receiving a share of the funding include over 60 intermediate care beds and improved assessment spaces and cubicles in A&E. NHS England expects that the majority of schemes will be completed by January to help deal with winter pressures.
Examples include Peterborough City Hospital, where £12.5m will be used to provide 72 hospital beds through the conversion of underutilised non-clinical space. In London at the Northwick Park Hospital, a 32-bed modular acute medical ward is being created through a £22.6m investment to increase the hospital’s capacity.
Several Trusts will develop or expand urgent treatment centres to treat patients more quickly, helping to reduce waiting times, including Hull Royal Infirmary, James Cook University Hospital, Airedale General Hospital and Worthing Hospital.
Some Trusts will use the funding to develop or expand same day emergency care services, including in Whipps Cross Hospital, Royal Surrey County Hospital, Croydon University hospital and Worthing Hospital.
The government reports that the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan is already bringing improvements to services for patients. It says average category 2 ambulance response times are down by 27 minutes on July last year, and down by 60 minutes on the peak of winter pressures seen in December 2022. The plan includes a commitment for 800 new ambulances, including specialist mental health ambulances to improve response times this winter.
This capital funding is on top of the existing investment as part of the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan. with £1 billion of dedicated funding to support capacity in urgent and emergency services, building on the £500m used last winter. The government has also invested £200 million into ambulance services to increase the number of ambulance hours on the road, as well as a further £1.6 billion of funding for social care to reduce the numbers of beds occupied by patients ready to be discharged.
Full list of schemes
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East of England: |
Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS FT (£3,000) |
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North West Anglia NHS FT (12,483) |
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Norfolk Community Health & Care NHS Trust (19,300) |
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London (NE): |
Barts Health NHS Trust (£2,654) |
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Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (£3,000) |
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London (NW): |
London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust (£22,622) |
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Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS FT (£2,879) |
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London (SE): |
King’s College Hospital NHS FT (£3,880) |
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Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust (£10,621) |
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London (SW): |
Croydon Health Services NHS Trust (£2,100) |
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Midlands: |
George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust (£15,145) |
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University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (£23,997) |
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Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust (£9,856) |
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Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (£21,400) |
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University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (£13,402) |
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North East & Yorkshire: |
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (£2,770) |
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South Tees NHS FT (£10,008) |
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Barnsley Hospital NHS FT (£2,400) |
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Airedale NHS FT (£4,116) |
| North West: |
Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHSFT (£15,000) |
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East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (£4,900) |
| South East: |
Buckingham Healthcare NHS Trust (£10,580) |
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Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust (£2,501) |
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Medway NHS FT (£3,854) |
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Surrey and Sussex Hospital NHS Trust (£6,000) |
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Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust (£2,818) |
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University Hospitals Sussex NHS FT (£4,496) |
| South West: |
Sirona Care and Health CIC (£4,920) |
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Cornwall Partnership NHS FT (£3,000) |
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University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (£5,000) |
