Rishi Sunak visits Leeds as Government set to move patients out of hospitals

On a visit to a community health centre in West Yorkshire, the Prime Minister defended the Government’s decision on Sunday evening to discharge more people from hospital to be treated close to their homes, as it was “the right thing to do”.

“It frees up pressure in our hospitals that will ease some of the burdens that we’re seeing in emergency departments and ambulance waiting times,” he said.

“It’s also better for people to be treated at home where they can be or closer to their home.”

The announcement, coming after the Government was criticised for having no plan to tackle the NHS winter crisis, would create at least 3,000 new places, Downing said yesterday.

Government plans to “buy” additional care home beds to ease pressure on the NHS should create at least 3,000 new places, Downing Street has said.

“We are confident that there is the capacity to deliver this. I think there are estimated to be tens of thousands of additional beds in the care system as a whole,” said the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said.

Health Secretary Steve Barclay said yesterday that he and the Government regret that patients’ experiences in the NHS had not been “acceptable in recent weeks”.

Making a statement in the Commons on NHS winter pressures, he said: “There’s no question it has been an extraordinarily difficult time for everyone in health and care.

“Flu has made this winter particularly tough. First, because we’re facing the worst flu season for 10 years.”

The Health Secretary told MPs the number of people in hospital with flu “this time last year was 50”, whereas this year, “it was over 5,100”.

He went on to say that an emergency recovery plan for the NHS had been drawn up, with the aim of addressing three areas: the immediate crisis, preparing for next winter, and longer term prevention of ill health to safeguard the system.

Mr Barclay said this would be achieved by block booking beds in residential homes, boosting capacity in A&Es, and stopping inspections of emergency staff.

However, the Government was warned that “tacked-on” funding to buy extra care beds will not address the long-term problems plaguing social care and the health service.

Ministers will spend up to £200m buying thousands of extra beds in care homes and other settings to help discharge more hospital patients and reduce the strain on hospitals, as well as £50m funding for hospitals.

The Local Government Association (LGA) said the crisis will not be fixed “through tacked-on funding that fails to address any of the root causes of this situation”.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, which represents independent adult social care providers, said Ministers “never, ever understand that they should learn from their mistakes”, adding “I also think that a lot of the challenges we face are because successive governments have failed to find a proper approach to social care.”

It came as the Government last night agreed to extend the winter energy support scheme for businesses who are struggling to pay for energy bills, but reduced the amount of support they get.

It will deliver billions of pounds of support to companies over the 12 months from the start of April, however it is considerably less generous than the support they currently get.

The current scheme is set to cost the Government about £18 billion over just six months, compared with £5.5 billion over a whole year for the new plan.

The plan was welcomed by the Confederation of British Industry, which said it would “provide respite for many firms” and that it was “unrealistic to think the scheme could stay affordable in its current form”.