NHS Urgent and Emergency Care

The recent independent report by Lord Darzi makes it absolutely clear that urgent and emergency care services are also struggling, with the latest data published last week showing that one in 10 patients spend over 12 hours in A&E. We are committed to returning to service standards that patients rightly expect through our ambitious 10-year plan to reform the health service.

In September 2021, Victoria hospital in Deal lost provision for blood testing. After a long campaign by residents, it was agreed that it would return. However, that has stalled in the tendering process. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can move this forward?

I commend my hon. Friend for championing this issue on behalf of his constituents. I understand that he has raised it with the chief executive officer of his local trust. He will appreciate that commissioning decisions are a matter for the local integrated care board, in this case Kent and Medway ICB, but I am, of course, very happy to meet him to discuss it further.

I wish the Minister well in her efforts to address this issue, because it is extremely serious. There are very often more than 20 ambulances queueing outside Treliske hospital, which has a serious impact on expectations for patients. Will the Minister please look at the potential for urgent treatment centres to take pressure away from emergency departments, such as the urgent treatment centre at West Cornwall hospital in Penzance, which really needs to be re-established on a 24/7 basis? That would make a real impact.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his good wishes. It is, indeed, a huge task we have before us. We will maintain ambulance capacity throughout this winter. He makes a valuable point about alternative models to hospital admissions and treatment in the community. That is a matter for the local ICB, as I know he knows. It needs to look at which model is the best fit, particularly in rural areas, to reduce the pressure on frontline A&E services.

Intermediate care for people facing homelessness, which is recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, can reduce rough sleeping by around 70%. That is life-changing for people who have been sleeping rough and it plays a significant role in relieving pressure on hospitals. A recent evaluation of intermediate care for people facing homelessness in one county in England found a 56% reduction in A&E visits and a 67% reduction in emergency admissions. What exists currently is a postcode lottery. How can we embed the NICE approach in every integrated care system across England?

My hon. Friend has highlighted an issue that is often overlooked. Homelessness has risen to shocking levels in the last 14 years. When it was addressed under the last Labour Government, people were moved off the streets, and there was decent care at the front end of the hospital system and support in the community. My hon. Friend is right: there are good examples across the country, and we would like to see them embedded as part of our overall goal, across Government, of reducing the scourge of homelessness in society and once again supporting the front end of the health service.

I recently met representatives of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who told me that the inadequate state of social care was resulting in the deterioration of people’s physical health, leading to more presentations at emergency departments. Does the Minister agree that if social care were properly funded, pressure on our hospitals would be reduced?

What we see at the front end of the system is a result of the deterioration throughout the system, and the flow of patients from the community, through discharge and, indeed, through social care. Our ambitious 10-year plan will involve examining the entire patient pathway to ensure that care is provided in the community, closer to home. Prevention is a key part of that, as is the look that we are taking at social care.