NHS plan: £1bn for hospital beds and ambulance fleet
Thousands of extra hospital beds and hundreds of ambulances will be rolled out in England this year in a bid to tackle the long emergency care delays.
The 5,000 new beds will boost capacity by 5%, while the ambulance fleet will increase by 10% with 800 new vehicles.
Details of the £1bn investment will be set out later in a joint government and NHS England two-year blueprint.
Questions have also been raised about how the extra resources will be staffed - 1 in 10 posts in the NHS is vacant.
The government believes the measures, which will be introduced from April, will help the NHS to start getting closer to its waiting time targets.
It has set goals that by March 2024:
- 76% of A&E patients will be dealt with in four hours. Currently fewer than 70% are. The official target is 95%
- An average response time of 30 minutes for emergency calls such as heart attacks and strokes. In December patients waited over 90. The official target is 18.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said cutting NHS waiting times was one of his five main priorities.
Source: BBC News, 30 January 2023