Patients across London are set to benefit from a new ambulance hub and eight new and upgraded discharge lounges, which will free up A&E beds and help cut urgent and emergency care waiting times.
The new facilities are backed by nearly £50 million of investment as part of plans to improve urgent and emergency care performance and cut waiting lists, with London receiving £4.2 million in funding.
Discharge lounges will speed up access to care in hospitals across London by providing an additional 129 beds, chairs and trolleys for patients that have received treatment and are awaiting discharge.
Five lounges are already open, whilst a further three will be based at the Royal Free Hospital in Camden, the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, and Whittington Hospital in Islington.
Earlier this year, the Government and NHS published an urgent and emergency care plan to achieve one of the fastest and longest sustained improvements in emergency waiting times in the NHS’ history. Frontline capacity will be boosted with 800 new ambulances, including 100 specialist mental health vehicles, and 5,000 more sustainable hospital beds backed by a £1 billion dedicated fund.
The NHS successfully met the first target in its Elective Recovery Plan to virtually eliminate waits of over two years and has cut 18 month waits by over 91% from the peak in September 2021.
This Government is taking meaningful, substantive action to help the NHS recover from the impact of the pandemic, and to deliver on one of our five priorities for 2023: to cut NHS waiting lists.