Nineteen hospitals targeted for ‘urgent support’ before winter

NHS England has revealed the hospitals it is targeting for “urgent support” to avoid deterioration in emergency care performance ahead of winter.

NHS England has told HSJ it will provide “targeted clinically led support” to “19 of the most pressured hospital sites across the country” in a bid to reduce long accident and emergency waits and avoidable admissions.

Senior teams from NHSE’s Getting it Right First Time and Emergency Care Improvement Support Team will visit the hospitals two to three days per week from September to December, with “virtual support outside of this”.

The “targeted support” will be aligned with NHSE’s existing emergency care intervention regime, which ranks systems requiring the most support in “tier 1” to those needing the least, in ‘tier 3’. NHSE has recently updated its tiering, which has meant an escalation in intervention for a number of systems.

The 19 sites were selected after NHSE reviewed all acute hospitals to identify areas for urgent improvement before winter in relation to access, and in particular quality and patient experience. HSJ understands no new money is backing up these “improvement offers”.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 2 September 2024