Dear constituent,
Thank you for contacting me about NHS funding and NHS services as we enter the autumn/winter period.
My colleague, the Health Secretary, Therese Coffey, recognises the challenges facing the NHS. This autumn, her priorities include reducing ambulance waiting lists and reducing the NHS backlog. She recently introduced a specific plan to support the NHS over the coming months and beyond - Our plan for patients - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) which will be prioritising ambulances, backlogs, care and doctors and dentists. This will improve patients’ access to GP practices, recruit additional support staff, give pharmacies powers to prescribe more medicines and introduce cloud-based telephone systems to GP practices.
This is just the first step in the work to bolster our NHS and social care services, helping to cut Covid backlogs, deliver additional appointments and help patients can get the care they need. The Government is doing this by:
• Changing funding rules to recruit extra support staff, freeing up over one million appointments per year. By changing the funding rules, GP practices will be able to recruit additional support staff, such as GP assistants and advanced nurse practitioners – allowing GPs to focus on treating patients and freeing up over one million appointments per year.
• Publishing appointment data at practice level for the first time ever – helping patients to better understand the care they will receive. By publishing appointment data at practice level, we will support patients in getting better access to information about their treatments, allowing them to make decisions that best suit them.
• Helping pharmacies to manage and supply more medicines, freeing up to two million GP appointments per year. By allowing pharmacies to manage and supply medicines, such as contraceptives, without a GP prescription, we will help to free up to two million GP appointments each year.
• Allowing pharmacies to take referrals for minor illnesses from emergency care, helping to reduce NHS wait times for patients. By allowing pharmacies to take referrals from emergency care for illnesses such as coughs, headaches, and sore throats, we will free up valuable time and resources in emergency care departments, helping to reduce wait times.
• Accelerating the roll-out of new cloud-based telephone systems, making it easier for patients to get through to their local GP practice. This will make it easier for patients to arrange appointments and receive advice about their care.
• Calling on the one million volunteers who stepped up during the pandemic to support the NHS to come forward again. During the pandemic, over one million volunteers stepped up to support our NHS, and we are calling on them to come forward again in a national endeavour such as by becoming community first responders or Good Neighbour Scheme leaders.
In terms of GP provision, while an extra £2 billion has been invested in general practice in the last 2 years, I know from my own inbox that patients tell me that making an appointment in general practice has become more difficult in recent years. The Health Secretary has been clear that patients who need an appointment with their GP practice within 2 weeks should get one, and that patients with urgent needs should be seen on the same day. To support surgeries to deliver this, the NHS England will make it easier to get through to practices by telephone for appointments and advice. An additional 31,000 phone lines will be available for GP practices. From January 2023, we will accelerate the delivery of high quality ‘cloud-based’ telephone solutions.
The Department for Health and Social Care will increase the number of appointments for patients by over one million by freeing up funding rules to widen the types of staff that work in general practice. This could include GP assistants and advanced practitioners. These rules will be changed from October 2022. In addition it will make more time available for appointments by introducing digital tools and improving IT systems to ease administrative burdens. This includes automating appointment reminder messages, consultation booking and triage responses.
The Government is providing historic investment in health and our NHS, and is committed to funding our health and public services properly. Following the 2021 Spending Review, NHS England’s day-to-day budget is set to grow by 3.8 per cent on average up to 2024/25, supporting the NHS to tackle the elective backlog, deliver its Long Term Plan and ensure it has the resources needed to recover from the impact of Covid-19.
Spending on health services will increase from £133 billion at the start of this Parliament, to over £177 billion by the end: an increase of over £44 billion. Despite difficult financial circumstances, NHS investment has increased every year since 2010.
The Covid-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented challenge and had a profound impact on the NHS. I know that the Government is absolutely committed to supporting the NHS recovery from Covid-19. Over £8 billion will be spent up to 2024/25 to support the delivery of around nine million more checks, scans and procedures. It will also mean the NHS can aim to deliver around 30 per cent more elective activity by 2024-25 than before the pandemic. This will be supported by a £5.9 billion investment in capital for new beds, equipment and technology.
Finally, in response to emails from the Every Doctor campaign about the NHS workforce, whilst I cannot commit to signing the EveryDoctor’s #ReviveTheNHS pledge, I am glad that the Government is taking action to address many of the issues identified in this campaign. I fully understand that the last two years has been a very difficult time for NHS staff, who have done an incredible job in immensely challenging circumstances. We owe them a great debt of gratitude and I pay tribute to all NHS workers, especially those here in North East Bedfordshire.
I am absolutely committed, as are my colleagues, to supporting NHS staff with their mental health. A total of 40 dedicated support hubs across the country offer staff access to mental health services. Services can be accessed over the phone with onward referral to online and one-to-one expert help from qualified mental health clinicians, therapists, recovery workers and psychologists.
I am also incredibly grateful to all those retired and partially returned staff to work for their commitment and service during the pandemic.
The suspension of the NHS Pension Scheme restrictions has already been extended, and I am glad that the Department of Health and Social Care has taken steps to extend the temporary retire and return easements via temporary amendments to NHS Pension Scheme regulations.
On 28 August, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a consultation on proposals to further extend the suspension of the NHS Pension Scheme restrictions until 31 March 2023. The consultation closed on 12 September. The Department is currently reviewing responses and will respond appropriately in due course.
To expand the NHS workforce during the pandemic, the Government introduced the Health and Care visa in August 2020 to made it quicker and cheaper for regulated health and care professionals to secure their visa to work in the Health and Care sector.
Furthermore, a number of Health and Care occupations, such as senior care workers, nurses and auxiliary nurses and assistants, feature on the Shortage Occupation List (SOL). In December 2021 the Government accepted recommendations that care workers be added to the SOL, making them eligible for the Health and Care Visa. This change came into force on 15 February 2022 and is making it easier for care employers to recruit eligible workers to reduce any staff shortages through fast-track processing and reduced visa fees.
Thank you for getting in touch.
Sincerely,
