News / Providers call for £350m funding boost to mitigate winter pressure concerns

The providers’ body said failure to do so would also increase waiting times in A&E and other services. 

A report on the state of readiness for the coming winter at the beginning of September said planning and support were considerably better developed than last year. Emergency care has been given a higher priority, while extra social care funding has increased capacity in around a third of areas. 

However, the improvements were outweighed by a number of growing risks. It said NHS trusts are not benefiting consistently from the extra £1bn announced for social care in the spring Budget. Consequently, the government’s target of a delayed transfers of care rate of 3.5% in September would be missed. 

Demand for emergency care continued to surge, the four-hour standard in A&E has not been met for more than two years, and there were growing staff shortages in key clinical areas. Outside hospitals, primary and community service capacity was under pressure and trusts did not have the financial flexibility to afford the extra resources they need.

The King’s Fund highlighted a shortage of beds ahead of the winter period. It said the NHS now had fewer acute beds than any comparable health system. Some sustainability and transformation plans proposed further cuts and were undesirable and unachievable.

NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson (pictured)  said trusts were getting better planning support from NHS Improvement and NHS England. 

But he added: ‘Despite this, the overwhelming view of NHS trusts is that without immediate extra funding they will not have sufficient capacity to manage this winter safely. 

‘Patients will be put at greater risk as local trusts won’t have the extra beds, staff and services they need to meet the extra demand they will face. The only way to mitigate these risks is through an urgent NHS cash injection.’

Later in the month, in response to the Labour call for a £500m winter bailout, Mr Hopson warned that it was getting ‘late in the day’ to put in place the extra resources needed.

Trusts in England entered this financial year facing an underlying £5.9bn shortfall in their budgets, according to the Nuffield Trust. In The bottom line, the thinktank said this would fall to £4.1bn following the £1.8bn sustainability and transformation fund. This left £3.6bn of savings needed to achieve the target deficit of £500m by year-end – 4.3% in savings. This was ‘next to impossible’, the report said.