To:
- ICB:
- chairs
- chief executives
- chief operating officers
- medical directors
- chief nurses/directors of nursing
- chief people officers
- NHS acute, community and mental health trust:
- chairs
- chief executives
- chief operating officers
- medical directors
- chief nurses/directors of nursing
- chief people officers
- Primary care networks
Dear Colleagues,
Delivering operational resilience across the NHS this winter
This letter sets out our national approach to 2023/24 winter planning, and the key steps we must take together across all parts of the system to meet the challenges ahead.
In January, we published our delivery plan for recovering Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) services: an ambitious two-year plan to deliver improvements for patients across the integrated Urgent and Emergency Care (iUEC) pathway. This plan, along with the Primary Care Recovery Plan, Elective Recovery Plan and the broader strategic and operational plans and priorities for the NHS, provides a strong basis to prepare for this winter.
The publication of the UEC Recovery Plan followed an incredibly challenging winter – with high rates of infectious disease, industrial action, and capacity constraints due to challenges discharging patients, especially to social and community care. We know these challenges have continued but want to thank you for the work you have done in the face of this to ensure that there have nonetheless been significant improvements in performance. Thanks to these improvements, we are in a significantly better place compared to last summer. Compared to last June, A&E performance has improved and Category 2 performance is 14 minutes faster.
This progress and the plan we are today setting out for winter preparedness are key steps in helping us achieve our two key ambitions for UEC recovery of:
- 76% of patients being admitted, transferred, or discharged within four hours by March 2024, with further improvement in 2024/25.
- Ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average over 2023/24, with further improvement in 2024/25.
To help achieve these ambitions, we have ensured that systems have had clarity over finances well before winter to allow them to plan effectively and further roll-out the measures that we know will improve services for patients. We have invested extensively in this, including:
- £1 billion of dedicated funding to support capacity in urgent and emergency services, building on the £500 million used last winter.
- £250 million worth of capital investment to deliver additional capacity.
- £200 million for ambulance services to increase the number of ambulance hours on the road.
- Together with DHSC, an additional £1.6 billion of discharge funding over 2023/24 and 2024/25, building on the £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund.
While we are making good progress towards achieving our overall ambitions, we want to encourage providers to achieve even better performance over the second half of the year. We will therefore be launching an incentive scheme for those providers with a Type 1 A&E department to overachieve on their planned performance in return for receiving a share of a £150 million capital fund in 2024/25. We are asking providers to meet two thresholds to secure a share of this money:
- Achieving an average of 80% A&E 4-hour performance over Q4 of 2023/24.
- Completing at least 90% of ambulance handovers within 30 minutes during Q3 and Q4 of 2023/24.
We recognise that these are stretching targets but know that many providers will be able to achieve these to help the NHS as a whole make greater headway towards improving care for patients. Providers should already be putting measures in place which will contribute towards reaching these, including a greater focus on the longest times in department, particularly those spending longer than 12-hours, and wider system flow. We will communicate more details on this shortly, including how we will be working with you to improve data quality.
Turning to our wider planning for winter, we are clear that the challenges are not just in ambulance services or emergency departments, and recovery requires all types of providers to work together to provide joined-up care for patients. ICBs will play a vital role in system leadership but the actions we take need to extend across the wider health and care system including mental health services, services for children and young people, community health services, primary care and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.
We are therefore setting out four areas of focus for systems to help prepare for winter:
- Continue to deliver on the UEC Recovery Plan by ensuring high-impact interventions are in place
Together with systems, providers, and clinical and operational experts we have identified 10 evidence-based high-impact interventions. These are focused around reducing waiting times for patients and crowding in A&E departments, improving flow and reducing length of stay in hospital settings. Delivering on these will be key to improving resilience in winter. We have recently written to all systems to ask that they assess their maturity against these areas as part of the universal improvement offer for the UEC Recovery Plan. Systems will then receive dedicated support on the four areas they choose to focus their improvement for winter.
More detail on these areas can be found at Appendix A and on the NHS IMPACT website.
- Completing operational and surge planning to prepare for different winter scenarios
We have already collectively carried out a detailed operational planning round for 2023/24 but we are now asking each system to review their operational plans, including whether the assumptions regarding demand and capacity remain accurate. Although this will cover surge planning for the whole winter, specific plans should be made for the Christmas/New Year/early-January period which we know is often the most challenging time of the entire year.
In addition to this, and recognising the importance of planning for multiple scenarios, we are asking systems to identify how they will mobilise additional capacity across all parts of the NHS should it be required to respond to peaks in demand driven by external factors eg, very high rates of influenza or COVID-19, potential further industrial action.
This planning is essential to ensure winter plans protect and deliver elective and cancer recovery objectives, as well as deliver the primary care access programme, and proactive care for those most at risk of hospital admission (guidance on proactive care will be published shortly).
Next week, we will be issuing each ICB with a template to capture their surge plan and overall winter plan. We will work with those areas that are facing the greatest challenges across the UEC pathway via our tiering programme to support them in completing these returns. If you think you require additional support, please contact england.uec-operations@nhs.net.
All returns should be sent to england.uec-operations@nhs.net by 11 September 2023.
- ICBs should ensure effective system working across all parts of the system, including acute trusts and community care, elective care, children and young people, mental health, primary, community, intermediate and social care and the VCSE sector.
ICBs will play a vital role in system leadership and co-ordination but it is important that all parts of the system play their role. The NHS England operating framework describes the roles that NHS England, ICBs and NHS providers should play, working alongside our partners in the wider health and care system. It outlines our collective accountabilities and responsibilities to ensure we deliver a health service that maximises outcomes for patients.
To help systems plan, we have developed a set of recommended winter roles and responsibilities (Appendix B) to ensure clarity on what actions should be undertaken by each part of the system. These will require broad clinical leadership to implement, and systems should be using these to develop their winter planning return, reflecting how these relate to the circumstances within their individual system.
DHSC is also writing to local authorities and the adult social care sector shortly to set out priority actions for improving winter resilience and encouraging cross-system working with the NHS on winter planning.
To assist system working this winter, next week, we will also be publishing an updated specification for System Co-Ordination Centres and an updated Operational Pressures Escalation (OPEL) Framework to ensure we are taking a consistent and co-ordinated approach to managing pressures across all systems.
- Supporting our workforce to deliver over winter
This year colleagues have continued to work incredibly hard in the face of increased demand. We know how much supporting your workforce matters to you, and it is crucial that employers ensure that they take steps to protect and improve the wellbeing of the workforce.
Last winter, we saw flu return at scale. It is vitally important that we protect the public and the health and care workforce against flu and other infectious diseases, and the best way of doing this is to ensure they are vaccinated. Providers should also ensure that they have an established pathway for identifying patients at-risk of COVID-19 and flu in their care, including those who are immunosuppressed.
Systems and providers should also continue to improve retention and staff attendance through a systematic focus on all elements of the NHS People Promise, as set out in 2023/24 priorities and operational planning guidance and more recently in the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, and ensure continued supply through maintaining education and training.
We want to thank you and everyone across the NHS for your continued hard work this year, we have again faced some unprecedented challenges but through strong partnership working we have once again risen to these.
The coming months will undoubtably be difficult, but we will continue to support you to ensure that we collectively deliver a high-quality of health service to patients and support our workforce. Thank you again for all your efforts as we work to build a more resilient NHS ahead of winter.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah-Jane Marsh, National Director of Integrated Urgent and Emergency Care and Deputy Chief Operating Officer, NHS England.
Sir David Sloman, Chief Operating Officer, NHS England.
Julian Kelly, Chief Financial Officer, NHS England.
Appendix A: 10 High-Impact Interventions
| Action | |
| 1 | Same Day Emergency Care: reducing variation in SDEC provision by providing guidance about operating a variety of SDEC services for at least 12 hours per day, 7 days per week. |
| 2 | Frailty: reducing variation in acute frailty service provision. Improving recognition of cases that could benefit from specific frailty services and ensuring referrals to avoid admission. |
| 3 | Inpatient flow and length of stay (acute): reducing variation in inpatient care (including mental health) and length of stay for key iUEC pathways/conditions/cohorts by implementing in-hospital efficiencies and bringing forward discharge processes for pathway 0 patients. |
| 4 | Community bed productivity and flow: reducing variation in inpatient care and length of stay, including mental health, by implementing in-hospital efficiencies and bringing forward discharge processes. |
| 5 | Care transfer hubs: implementing a standard operating procedure and minimum standards for care transfer hubs to reduce variation and maximise access to community rehabilitation and prevent re-admission to a hospital bed. |
| 6 | Intermediate care demand and capacity: supporting the operationalisation of ongoing demand and capacity planning, including through improved use of data to improve access to and quality of intermediate care including community rehab. |
| 7 | Virtual wards: standardising and improving care across all virtual ward services to improve the level of care to prevent admission to hospital and help with discharge. |
| 8 | Urgent Community Response: increasing volume and consistency of referrals to improve patient care and ease pressure on ambulance services and avoid admission. |
| 9 | Single point of access: driving standardisation of urgent integrated care co-ordination which will facilitate whole system management of patients into the right care setting, with the right clinician or team, at the right time. This should include mental health crisis pathways and alternatives to admission, eg home treatment |
| 10 | Acute Respiratory Infection Hubs: support consistent roll out of services, prioritising acute respiratory infection, to provide same day urgent assessment with the benefit of releasing capacity in ED and general practice to support system pressures. |
Publication reference: PRN00645