Urgent and Emergency Care

Answer from Steve Barclay

The urgent and emergency care recovery plan sets out how we will invest more than £1 billion in increasing capacity, including 800 new ambulances, an additional 5,000 core beds and a further 3,000 virtual wards, to provide more than 10,000 out-of-hospital care settings.

Answer from Steve Barclay

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of UTCs. Nationally, they are above the national standard: 95.5% of patients are seen within four hours. He is a highly effective campaigner on health issues—he helped to secure the £2.8 million of investment for a new paediatric emergency department in his local area—and I know that he will be making a similar case to his local commissioners.

Answer from Steve Barclay

As the House knows, I am extremely committed to modern methods of construction and modular building capacity. We are using that as a central component of our new 40 hospitals programme. My hon. Friend will know that the RAAC—reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—hospitals are very much part of that discussion, not just at Frimley but at King's Lynn, at Hinchingbrooke and in a whole range of other settings. He will also know that we are in a purdah period, so we are constrained in what we can say, but we will have more to say on this very shortly.

Answer from Steve Barclay

The hon. Gentleman talks of 13 years. People are nearly twice as likely to be waiting for treatment in the Labour-run Welsh NHS as people seeking treatment in England, and, indeed, waits are longer in Wales: we have virtually eliminated two-year waits in England, whereas more than 41,000 people in Labour-run Wales are waiting more than two years.

Answer from Steve Barclay

I know we have clinicians in the House who do second jobs, but I did not know that the hon. Lady had expanded that definition to such an extent! She is right to highlight, through her survey, the importance of timely care. There is currently a range of initiatives, such as the development of the NHS app, the review of the 111 service, and the examination of innovations such as artificial intelligence. We are looking into how we can manage demand in the case of, in particular, frail elderly people by noting changes in behaviour patterns, which will allow us to ensure that, for example, someone who has a fall at home receives care much earlier before arriving in the accident and emergency department, because we know that once frail elderly people have been admitted they will often be in hospital for about 14 days. The hon. Lady has raised an extremely important issue through her survey, and one on which we are focusing in our urgent and emergency recovery plan.

Answer from Steve Barclay

As a result of the fantastic work of Sir Jim Mackey and Professor Tim Briggs through the Getting It Right First Time programme, we have been making significant progress in respect of elective procedures. When it comes to urgent and emergency care, there are lessons coming out of the various strikes which we are keen to adopt, but this situation is also clearly having an impact on patients and the number of cancellations. As my hon. Friend well knows, we publish the figures. We have been working constructively with the NHS Staff Council. Unison voted by a majority of 74% to support the deal, there will be further votes this week from other key trade unions, and there will be a decision from the staff council on 2 May. Obviously, that will be extremely important when it comes to addressing the concern highlighted by my hon. Friend.

Answer from Steve Barclay

To be honest, I think the position is mixed. In certain areas we have seen significant improvements in performance: the faster diagnosis standard, for example, was hit for the first time this month. Purdah prevents me from going into the details of the 78-week wait, but I expect to be able to update the House very soon on the progress that has been made. As the hon. Gentleman says, there are still challenges as a consequence of the pandemic, but we are seeing much more progress than the NHS in Wales, and it is also worth reminding the House that, through Barnett consequentials, the Welsh NHS receives more funding that the NHS in England.

Answer from Steve Barclay

There are two separate issues there: what we are doing for mental health in-patients and the point about A&E waits. On mental health, we have significantly increased funding through an extra £2.3 billion per year in the long-term plan made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May). We are spending far more and investing far more in it.