Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on making available additional funding for the NHS to prepare for a potential increase in demand for health services between December 2018 and March 2019.

My Rt hon. Friend The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care regularly meets with colleagues across Government to discuss a range of subjects. The Government is supporting the National Health Service with £1.6 billion of extra resource for 2018-19 to support accident and emergency and elective care performance. In addition, the Government has provided £145 million capital funding to support emergency care across the country to prepare for winter pressures; £36 million for ambulance trusts, which will go towards buying 256 new state-of-the-art ambulances; and, £240 million for local authorities to help ease winter pressures on the NHS, getting patients home quicker and freeing up hospital beds across England.