Care ‘traffic control’ centres to speed up discharge, additional ambulance hours and extra beds are part of wide-ranging plans from NHS England (NHSE) to prepare for winter. The NHS will also be announcing a new scheme to encourage local teams to ‘overachieve’ on performance measures with financial incentives provided for these areas.
With more than 12,000 patients every day in hospital despite being medically fit for discharge, a nationwide rollout of ‘care traffic control’ centres will provide one-stop for staff to locate and co-ordinate the best and quickest discharge options for patients - either at home or into social or community care.
The centres will bring together teams from across NHS, social care, housing, and voluntary services in one place to help make live decisions and offer patients everything they need in one place. Around a quarter of local areas currently offer this service 12 hours a day, seven days a week and this is set to expand to every area of the country by winter.
Drawing information from electronic patient records to track patients and link up with housing services, it is expected a third of patients could be discharged using this model by December.
Examples where this approach is producing positive results include Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, where improvements to staff rounds and ease of discharge have been enabled through the Timely Care Hub. Staff can track tasks and patient status live, and check information like anticipated discharge date and pathways. In future, the Trust will also be able to use the Timely Care Hub to check outstanding risk assessments for things like falls, infection control and pain assessment.
At North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust in Teesside a new system operates in a dedicated control room and tracks patients from admission through their hospital journey, highlighting in real-time any issues that could delay their discharge once they are medically ready to leave. Following a successful pilot, this system is now being rolled out around the country by NHS England.
NHSE is bracing itself for another winter with the possibility of higher than usual levels of respiratory illness including Covid, flu and RSV. Australia, whose activity often predicts what the NHS in England is likely to see in winter, is experiencing one of the biggest flu seasons on record with children particularly affected, making up four in five of flu-related hospital admissions.
The use of Acute Respiratory Hubs – where patients can get urgent same-day face-to-face assessment for conditions like Covid, flu and RSV will also be expanded to be available in every part of the country. Last winter, when first introduced, almost 730,000 patients used these services, helping to speed up access to care and advice while reducing wider system pressures.
With high levels of bed occupancy all year around, hospitals are putting more beds in place for patients and are on track to hit 5,000 additional ‘core’ permanent general and acute beds. The virtual ward programme is also being expanded to children, with overall virtual wards bed numbers expected to hit an ambition of 10,000 by the end of September.
Health leaders have welcomed the early planning and clarity that this announcement provides. Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, says: “The plan is based on sound evidence of what works, backed by data and learning from the last few winters. Its publication now, in summer, will give the health service a timely opportunity to prepare for what will likely be an extremely challenging winter.”
Miriam Deakin, Director of Policy and Research at NHS Providers, adds: “Trust leaders will welcome national recognition of the need to boost capacity and resilience during what they expect to be another tough few months.”
The robust new measures aim to boost capacity and resilience across the NHS as well as building on the recent improvements in ambulance response times and A&E performance.
