The Government has pledged that patients will receive better, faster and more appropriate emergency care with a new package of investment and reforms.
Backed with a total of nearly £450 million, the plan will deliver:
- Around 40 new Same Day Emergency Care and Urgent Treatment Centres – which treat and discharge patients in the same day, avoiding unnecessary admissions to hospital.
- Up to 15 mental health crisis assessment centres to provide care in the right place for patients and avoid them waiting in A&E for hours for care, which is not the most appropriate setting for people who are experiencing a crisis. These centres will offer people timely access to specialist support and are directed to the right care.
- Almost 500 new ambulances will also be rolled out across the country by March 2026.
The plan’s emphasis will be on shifting more patient care into more appropriate care settings as part of the move from hospital to community under the government’s Plan for Change to rebuild the NHS, while tackling ambulance handover delays and corridor care.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said: “No patient should ever be left waiting for hours in hospital corridors or for an ambulance which ought to arrive in minutes.“We can’t fix more than a decade of underinvestment and neglect overnight. But through the measures we’re setting out today, we will deliver faster and more convenient care for patients in emergencies.
“Far too many patients are ending up in A&E who don’t need or want to be there, because there isn’t anywhere else available. Because patients can’t get a GP appointment, which costs the NHS £40, they end up in A&E, which costs around £400 – worse for patients and more expensive for the taxpayer.
“The package of investment and reforms we are announcing today will help the NHS treat more patients in the community, so they don’t end up stuck on trolleys in A&E. Hundreds of new ambulances will help cut the unacceptably long waiting times we’ve seen in recent years. And new centres for patients going through a mental health crisis will provide better care and keep them out of A&E, which are not well equipped to care for them.
“By shifting staff and resources out of hospitals and into communities, and modernising NHS technology and equipment, our Plan for Change will make sure the NHS can be there for you when you need it, once again”.
Sir Jim Mackey, NHS chief executive, said: “Urgent and emergency care services provide a life-saving first line of defence for patients – but for too long now, despite the incredible hard work of staff, the speed and quality of NHS care has often not been good enough. Our patients and staff deserve better, so that is why we need a radical change in approach and to ensure we get the basics right.
“This major plan sets out how we will work together to resuscitate NHS urgent and emergency care, with a focus on getting patients out of corridors, keeping more ambulances on the road, and enable those ready to leave hospital can do so as soon as possible”.
NHS national director for urgent and emergency care, Sarah-Jane Marsh, said: “It is vital that patients can access our urgent and emergency care services in the right place at the right time, and that the care provided is to a standard we would want for ourselves and our own families.
“While the 10 Year Health Plan will set out a longer-term vision to transform urgent and emergency services for the 21st century, there is so much more we could all be doing now.
“This plan sets out not only what we know is working across the country, but how systems must work together to improve access and quality for the benefit of our patients.
“In order to support this shift in delivery focus, NHS England will be asking providers and systems to be accountable to their own local Boards and populations, creating robust winter plans which will be tested during winter exercises throughout September”.
Every day more than 140,000 people access urgent and emergency care services across England. Since 2010/11, demand has almost doubled with ambulance service usage rising by 61%.
A&E waiting time standards have not been met for over a decade, while the 18-minute target for category 2 ambulance calls has never been hit outside the pandemic. But at least one in five people who attend A&E don’t need urgent or emergency care, while an even larger number could be better cared for in the community.
The plan focuses on making winter 2025/26 significantly better than recent winters by setting ambitious but achievable targets and increasing transparency about progress. It will also see more patients receive care in the community, rather than being unnecessarily admitted into hospital, through measures including:
- More paramedic-led care in the community – which means patients will receive more effective treatment at the scene of an accident or in their own homes from ambulance crews
- Increasing numbers of patients seen by urgent community response teams – which provide urgent care to people in their homes, helping to avoid hospital admissions and enable people to live independently for longer. Local areas will be told to lay out how they will expand access to these teams, which includes understanding level of needs;
- Better use of virtual wards – which use modern technology to provide patients with hospital-level care at home safely and in familiar surroundings, speeding up their recovery while freeing up hospital beds for patients that need them most
- Publishing league tables on performance to drive improved transparency and public accountability and as well as encouraging less effective systems to work more closely with high performing systems to accelerate improvement.
New reforms announced as part of the plan will help bring the analogue NHS into the digital age, to provide more efficient care. £20 million will be invested in providing ambulance crews with digital care records, so paramedics will be able to access a patient’s medical history from all different NHS services on various devices such as a laptop, tablet or smartphone, allowing them to make better care decisions. By next year, all ambulance trusts will be able to access this information.
The Government predicts that, as a result of the investment and reforms, 800,000 fewer people should be forced to wait more than four hours for care in emergency departments this year.
Chief Executive of NHS Providers, Daniel Elkeles said: “There is a lot to like about this plan. It’s helpful that we’re seeing it in early summer, with time to ensure meaningful measures are in place ahead of the added pressures of winter.
“It’s also good to see that so many parts of the system, including primary, community and mental health care, in addition to ambulance and hospital services, have been factored in.
“The extra capital investment for same day emergency care and mental health crisis assessment centres and ambulance services is particularly welcome, as is the emphasis on vaccination – and on this we’d urge NHS staff and the public to play their part by getting that protection.
“This plan should result in meaningful progress compared to last winter. As the plan acknowledges the public and our staff want to know the NHS can respond quickly, safely and effectively in an emergency. NHS Providers would like to work with NHSE and the government to develop long term UEC plans that are bold and ambitious”.
