Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much contingency are funding is available from the public purse for NHS hospitals in the event of a severe influenza outbreak in 2017.

Winter can often bring additional challenges but this year planning started earlier than ever before. Winter resilience money was included in National Health Service baseline funding for 2017/18 so that effective planning could start at an early stage. The NHS is committed to ensuring all patients continue to receive high quality, safe and efficient care as demand over winter increases. This Government has invested an extra £6 billion into the NHS over the last two years, plus £100 million ahead of winter to ease pressures on accident and emergency departments.

An additional £2 billion of funding has been allocated to local authorities over the next three years, including £1 billion for 2017/18 to implement best practice in discharging patients safely and quickly to reduce delayed transfers of care.