Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to support NHS trusts to maintain an appropriate level of bed occupancy during winter months.

As set out in the 2025/26 Urgent and Emergency Care Plan, the National Health Service is focussing on improvements that will see the biggest impact on urgent and emergency care performance during winter, including:

- improving hospital flow, with a focus on reducing the number of patients waiting more than 12 hours and making progress towards eliminating corridor care;

- reducing ambulance handovers to a maximum of 45 minutes, ensuring patients are transferred more quickly into hospital care;

- agreeing local pathway profiles to support discharge capacity planning and eliminate internal discharge delays of more than 48 hours in all settings;

- reducing the average length of stay for patients requiring an overnight emergency admission by at least 0.4 days returning closer to pre-pandemic levels;

- expanding access to urgent care in primary, community, and mental health settings - including increasing the number of people supported by Urgent Community Response teams and treated in virtual wards; and

- improving vaccination uptake among frontline staff, aiming to raise coverage in 2025/26 by at least 5% towards the pre-pandemic 2018/19 level.

We started planning earlier and have taken more action than in previous years to prepare for winter pressures. We continue to monitor the impact of winter pressures on the NHS over winter months, providing additional support to services across the country as needed.