Rishi Sunak has revealed details of a government plan that aims to cut NHS waiting times in urgent and emergency care.
The Prime Minister highlighted five key points that the government is implementing in an effort to help the challenges faced in emergency departments across the North East and the rest of the country. The points were revealed during a visit to the North East on Monday morning, where he was highlighting the Government's healthcare initiative in Darlington.
Capacity, increasing the workforce, discharge, more care outside of hospital, and improving the 111 service are the points the Government is implementing to make a difference to the NHS, Mr Sunak said. He added that the points are going to have an "enormous amount of support" to help trusts that are in need the most.
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Speaking to an audience made up of NHS staff and healthcare professionals on Monday, he said: "The first (point) is more capacity - 5,000 more beds, 800 more ambulances, 100 more mental health ambulances, just to put more capacity into the system.
"The second is to increase the workforce, making sure we've got more doctors, more nurses, more types of all professional. Third, is discharge. I mentioned we've got 14,000 people in hospital now at the moment who ought to be either back home or in their communities, and that's causing some of the challenges that we're seeing in some of our hospitals at the moment.
We've got a plan to speed discharge with particular money and some initiatives to help there."
Mr Sunak added: "The fourth thing is having more people cared for outside of hospital. Most people don't need to be in hospital, they don't want to be in hospital.
"There are some great examples where we can treat people with respiratory conditions in virtual wards. Lastly, were going to improve 111, we're going to put different types of people into the 111 service where people can get the help that they need on the phone and hopefully end up not needing to go to A&E in the first place.
All of that is going to have an enormous amount of support to help those trusts that need extra help."
Also during his visit, Mr Sunak spoke of his commitment in putting more police officers on the streets and the need to tackle violence against women following the tragic death of 15-year-old Holly Newton in Hexham.
The teen was the alleged victim of a stabbing on Friday, January 27, in the Priestpopple area of the town centre.
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