NHS England’s plans to recover urgent and emergency care services include 5,000 more staffed and sustainable beds and over 800 new ambulances in 2023/24.
The ‘Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services,’ sets out five areas that NHS England believes are essential to meet the challenges facing urgent and emergency care (UEC). These challenges include reducing bed occupancy, which has been running at consistently above 95% over 2022/23 and has a knock-on effect on patient flow throughout the hospital, as well as long waiting times being experienced in ambulance services and within A&E departments. The five-point action plan will target:
• Increasing capacity
• Growing the workforce
• Improving discharge
• Expanding and better joining up health and care outside hospital
• Making it easier to access the right care.
Systems are now charged with conducting appropriate demand and capacity profiling to identify where beds are most needed so the additional bed capacity can be distributed fairly across the country but also in a way that delivers the greatest benefit to patients. Providers are being told to maximise the use of existing estate and look at modular buildings where possible, which are flexible and relatively quick to introduce.
Care transfer hubs will be in place in every hospital ahead of next winter, which aim to result in faster discharge of patients to the right setting.
More emphasis will be placed on virtual wards with care provided at home rather than in hospital, with particular mention made of older, frail patients. This involves more joint working with community and social care services.
Responding to the plans, Saffron Cordery, Interim Chief Executive of NHS Providers said: “New measures including the expansion of virtual wards and services for falls and frailty will help ease some of the strain on urgent and emergency care services. It is a timely announcement as trust leaders battle with record-high pressures on the entire health and care system.”
Growing the workforce is a critical issue. NHS England is promising more flexibility, new roles, opportunities for those who may have recently retired to return to work, work from home options using digital solutions and mobilising volunteers. The long-term workforce plan is now promised for this spring.
Saffron reiterated the importance of this plan: “We desperately need action to tackle the vast workforce shortages, staff exhaustion and burnout, and the inability to free up capacity by discharging medically fit patients in a safe and timely way."
