This year, thousands of additional hospital beds and hundreds more ambulances will be deployed throughout England to reduce emergency care wait times.
The 5,000 new beds will enhance capacity by 5%, while the 800 new ambulances will expand the fleet size by 10%.
Details of the £1 billion investment have been included in a joint government and NHS England roadmap for the next two years.
Concerns have also been expressed over the staffing of the additional resources. One out of every ten positions in the NHS is vacant.
The King’s Fund health think tank called the plan’s impact “difficult to foresee” until this issue was resolved.
The government expects April improvements to help the NHS fulfil waiting time targets.
It has set goals for March 2024 as follows:
- In four hours, 76% of A&E patients will be attended to. Presently, less than 70% are. The stated objective is 95%
- The average response time for emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes is 30 minutes. In December, nearly 90 patients waited. The goal number is 18
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak identified reducing NHS wait times as one of his top five goals.
He stated, “We have an ambitious and viable agenda.”
However, Labour stated that the measures were insufficient to address the issues.
Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, accused ministers of thirteen years of incompetence and stated that the plan “watered down” important requirements and would still leave patients waiting longer than is safe.
He continued, “Expecting the Conservatives to resolve the crisis is like expecting an arsonist to put out the fire they caused; it simply cannot happen.”
Positive initial step
The plan expands some measures from last year and invests in beds and ambulances.
This involves the development of virtual wards in which patients with diseases such as heart failure receive expert treatment in the comfort of their own homes using digital technologies.
The year-round operation of fall services for the elderly to prevent hospitalization will also be implemented.
There will also be a large number of new pilots testing step-down care to help patients leave the hospital. This will include new rehabilitation and physiotherapy programs for individuals who require assistance following hospitalization.
Each day, more than fifty percent of hospital-bound patients cannot be released due to a lack of community care.
The government’s fall statement proposal to spend £6.6 billion on the NHS over two years funds the investment.
Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive officer of NHS England, deemed the measures essential. In my 25 years of experience in the service, the NHS has never been under such stress.
Miriam Deakin of NHS Providers
Hospital administrators’ representative, Miriam Deakin of NHS Providers, welcomed the strategy as a “good first step” on the road to recovery.
However, a funded workforce plan indicating how many additional personnel will be hired to solve the challenges was needed.
Over the past year, the plan has been continually delayed, but the administration claims it will be presented within months.
The King’s Fund’s Siva Anandaciva stated that while the plan was “broadly sensible,” the publishing of the workforce plan would likely be the “really defining” document for health care.
“The one thing that will affect the quality of care and access regardless of the service you are considering is the number of employees you have, so unless you have a clear strategy for that, it’s hard to see how [this plan] can have an impact very rapidly.”
