Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he has to ensure local health providers are able to meet additional health care demands over winter 2016-17.

The National Health Service has robust plans in place to identify rapidly and address seasonal pressures, and planning for winter takes place throughout the year. All local health and social care systems develop detailed plans. This winter, the Health Service allocated £400 million to local health systems for winter preparations.

Winter pressures are an issue for the whole local system, which is why NHS Improvement, and NHS England (with targeted support resources such as the Emergency Care Improvement Programme) work together, alongside social care and local authorities to resolve any issues that are contributing to pressures and ensure that patients are kept safe.

Management of day to day pressures is done in line with the new Operational Pressures Escalation Level framework. Pressures are monitored at the local, regional and national level by the winter resilience structure. Where further local support is required the winter resilience reporting structure (local, regional and national) acts as a point of escalation which can coordinate rapid action and support from NHS Improvement and NHS England in the system and oversee measures that can support local recovery.