The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Steve Barclay has given speech in the House of Commons on what the government is doing to help the NHS deal with immediate winter pressures.

He began by saying: "I and the government regret the experience for some patients and staff in emergency care has not been acceptable in recent weeks.

"I’m sure the whole House will join me in thanking staff in the NHS and social care who have worked tirelessly throughout this intense period, including those clinicians in this House who worked on wards this Christmas, including my Honorary Friend the Minister for Mental Health and the Shadow Minister for Mental Health."

Barclay highlighted that this has been the worst flu season for 10 years, with the number of people in hospital with flu this time last year at 50 compared to a current figure of 5,100.

He also talked about the problems with delayed discharge: "in June 2020 there were just 6,000 cases of delayed discharge per day – those patients ready to leave hospital who are medically fit to do so – whereas throughout last year, it was between 12,000 and 13,000 per day".

Barclay pointed out that the government needs to do more in light of Covid, flu and hospital occupancy rates.

The Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plans will be published in the coming weeks. The plans have been worked on by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and reviewed by health and care leaders at an NHS Recovery Forum.

There will be three main steps of the recovery. The first is to support the system now. £200 million will be invested over the next three months to block-book beds in residential homes along with other plans to improve delayed discharge.

The second step is to support a whole-system response this year to gain better resilience during the summer and autumn.

The third and final step is to maximise the step-change potential of proven technology such as virtual wards, and the wider adoption of innovations such as operational control centres and machine reading software to treat more conditions in the community away from reaching the emergency department in the first place.

Areas of focus for the government to achieve these goals include NHS System Control Centres, AI & Data, Virtual wards, Independent Sector, Pharmacy and Prevention

Image by Zahid H Javali from Pixabay