T H E P U B L I C AT I O N F O R N U R S I N G A N D R E S I D E N T I A L C A R E H O M E S Issue 117
W W W. T H E C A R E R U K . C O M
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Government Sets Out Funding Plan to Bolster Social Care Over Winter
Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey has announced a £500 million adult social care discharge fund for the coming winter. Speaking in the House of Commons (September 22), the Health Secretary said the funding will improve ambulance response times and free up beds in hospitals across the UK. The Health Secretary also noted a “shortage of carers across the country,” and said that £15m will go toward international recruitment campaigns this year to fill the empty positions. The ‘Our plan for patients’ will inject £500 million of additional funding into adult social care to help people get out of hospitals and into social care support,
speeding up the safe discharge of patients from hospital this winter to free up to 13,000 beds as well as helping to retain and recruit more care workers. The plan also sets out interventions to improve access to general practice appointments, with the expectation that everyone who needs one should get an appointment at a GP practice within 2 weeks – and that the patients with the most urgent needs should be seen within the same day. As well as more support staff, an enhanced role for pharmacists and new telephone systems, changes will also be made to NHS pension rules to retain more experienced NHS clinicians and remove the barriers to staff returning from retirement, increasing capacity for appointments and other services.
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