Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the NHS is equipped to provide care to patients with respiratory illnesses during winter 2022-23.

The ‘2022/23 priorities and operational planning guidance’ asks systems to increase capacity by implementing virtual wards to provide an alternative to hospital admission and to focus on two cohorts, including acute respiratory infection.

NHS England’s ‘Combined adult and paediatric Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) hubs’ sets out the provision of specialised care in the community for respiratory illnesses through respiratory hubs and virtual wards. In addition, systems have been asked to develop plans for additional bed capacity to mitigate projected demand.