Recently, I tabled a parliamentary question to ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of progress by the NHS on implementation of the Keogh Review of urgent and emergency care; and if he will make a statement.
Jane Ellison MP, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health, responded as follows:
On 3 June 2015, NHS England invited expressions of interest from organisations and partnerships across England to become vanguard sites for new care models focusing on urgent and emergency care. These sites will test new approaches to delivering urgent care and aim to improve the coordination of services and reduce pressure on accident and emergency departments. It is expected that about five million people will be covered by the initial phase of the vanguard sites, which could be rolled out across England in the next couple of years.
Across England as a whole, new urgent and emergency care networks are being developed. These will operate strategically, to improve the consistency and quality of urgent and emergency care by bringing together System Resilience Groups (SRGs) and other stakeholders to address challenges in the urgent and emergency care system that are difficult for single SRGs to address in isolation.”
I’m keen to see the swiftest progress in Wycombe: I will be raising these issues with our local NHS professionals shortly.
