Clinical leaders, health experts and ministers will convene in Downing Street for an NHS Recovery Forum today (Saturday 7 January).
Along with his regular meetings on the health service, the Prime Minister will host the Forum to bring together experts from across the health and care sector to discover opportunities to go further and faster on improving performance and outcomes.
The Forum will major on 4 crucial issues: social care and delayed discharge; urgent and emergency care; elective care; and first care.
A few of the perfect health and care minds within the country will use the session to share best practice and to grasp whether any innovations developed at a neighborhood level may very well be applied to other regional areas or on a national basis.
Because the Prime Minister set out in his speech earlier this week, innovation is at the guts of the federal government’s approach and will probably be an important aspect of the answer, and so Forum attendees will include representatives from each the general public and independent sector to make sure we’re harnessing a large spread of experience and talent.
The Forum is the subsequent step in the numerous motion that the federal government has taken to enhance outcomes and relieve the immediate pressures on the NHS and in social care brought on by the pandemic, with further pressures as a consequence of the recent rise in covid and flu cases.
On improving capability within the NHS, the federal government has provided an additional £500 million to hurry up hospital discharge this winter and we’re also increasing bed capability by the equivalent of seven,000 more beds.
The NHS is rolling out virtual wards across England, with an ambition to determine 40-50 virtual ward beds per 100k population, by December 2023. Virtual wards are where people, for instance, who’ve acute respiratory infections can actually be treated at home with telemedicine or pulse oximeters and there’s also a latest fall service which may save about 55,000 ambulance call outs a 12 months by treating individuals with falls at home.
In total, the federal government will invest as much as £14.1 billion additional funding over the subsequent two years to enhance urgent and emergency care and tackle the backlog – the best spend on health and care in any government’s history. £7.5 billion of this support is for adult social care and discharge over the subsequent two years, which may also help cope with immediate pressures.
91 Community Diagnostic Centres have been opened to this point they usually have delivered over 2.7 million tests, checks and scans to assist diagnose patients earlier.
The federal government can be continuing to grow the NHS workforce, with around 42,000 more staff than a 12 months ago, including over 10,500 more nurses and almost 4,700 more doctors.
The federal government is investing at the very least £1.5 billion to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024, while the NHS is accelerating the rollout of recent state-of-the-art telephone systems to make it easier for patients get through to their GP surgeries.
Earlier within the week, the Prime Minister set out one in every of his key guarantees that NHS waiting lists will fall and folks will get the care they need more quickly. He also pledged to make sure that the NHS is built around patients.
The Forum will run for nearly all of Saturday and attendees will include chief executives and clinical leaders from NHS organizations, local areas and councils from across the country, clinical experts from Royal Colleges and independent sector organizations working with health and social care services to deliver services for patients.
The Health and Social Care Secretary, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NHS England will attend the Forum.
A Downing Street Spokesperson said:
Because the Prime Minister made clear this week, easing the immediate pressures whilst also focussing on the long-term improvement of the NHS is one in every of his key guarantees.
That is why we’re bringing together the perfect minds from the health and care sectors to assist share knowledge and practical solutions in order that we are able to tackle essentially the most crucial challenges comparable to delayed discharge and emergency care.
We would like to correct the unwarranted variation in NHS performance between local areas, because irrespective of where you reside you must give you the chance to access quality healthcare.”