Crawley MP Henry Smith welcomes local trial to free up hospital beds

This new initiative, launched on Monday January 9, will see Sussex Health & Care Integrated Care System trialling a new data tool to help services manage performance, give operational oversight and manage demand.

Sussex is one of six areas exploring new ideas to free up hospital beds and make sure patients get the right care at the right time – key to reducing future urgent and emergency care delays and help getting ambulances back on the roads quicker.

Henry said: “My thanks to the Government and Sussex Health & Care Integrated Care System for trialling these solutions to free up hospital beds for local patients.

“It’s vital that people are able to leave hospital as soon as possible – not just to make space for those who need urgent care but it’s best for patients as well.

“I’m grateful to those working locally on this initiative. Ensuring people can be seen quicker in our NHS is a key priority and one I continue to pursue with the Health & Social Care Secretary.”

The Minister for Care, Helen Whately, said: “Getting people out of hospital on time is more important than ever. It’s good for patients and it helps hospitals make space for those who need urgent care.

“We’re launching six Discharge Frontrunners to lead the way with innovations to help get people out of hospital and back home.

“Winter is always hard for the NHS and social care, and this year especially with flu in high circulation. That’s why we provided the £500 million Discharge Fund earlier in the winter.

“As well as helping people right now, we’re looking ahead to make our health and care system work better next winter and beyond. These problems are not new but now is the time to fix them for the future.”

In total, up to £14.1 billion additional funding will be invested by Government over the next two years to improve urgent and emergency care and tackle the backlog – the highest spend on health and care in any government’s history. £7.5 billion of this support is for adult social care and discharge over the next two years which will also help deal with immediate pressures.