Monday, sir barclay it will outline plans to expand hospital bed capacity to ease the “lockdown” seen as hospitals have become overcrowded.
Hospitals will be asked to reduce bed occupancy to 92 percent or less, to “improve patient flow,” which will mean finding about 4,000 more beds.
The Government is also looking to spend hundreds of millions of pounds buying care beds in a bid to clear wards and ease pressure on the NHS.
Mr Barclay will outline the plans this week, which will include a hospital discharge fund.
The fund will buy thousands of beds in facilities, which are approved by the Care Quality Commission, in addition to the £500m being spent on social care funds revealed in the autumn statement, according to senior government sources.
Negotiations are still ongoing on the final details of the package, which will have an impact in the next four weeks and could free up between 1,000 and 2,000 hospital beds. Currently, a total of 13,000 patients are blocking beds on the wards.
The Health Secretary will meet union leaders from the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), GMB, Unite and Unison on Monday for what he hopes will be “constructive talks” about what is “fair and affordable” for the coming year.
Leaders of other unions on strike, such as the RMT, which represents railway workers, have also been invited to meet their state secretaries.
He second national ambulance strike it is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, with a two-day nurses’ strike scheduled for January 18-19. The RCN originally demanded a 19 percent pay rise for this year, but last week its leader said he would consider accepting 10 percent. cent increase.
Young doctors threaten a three-day strike in March if they win a vote on industrial action that opens Monday.
In his article, Mr Barclay wrote that the Government cannot “spend every winter frozen in wage negotiations with unions” as it diverts focus from the other real challenges facing the NHS.
The Health Secretary said: “I also invited unions this week to discuss what is fair and affordable before presenting evidence to the independent Pay Review Body as part of our constructive approach.
“With less than three months left in this fiscal year, we should move forward and have constructive conversations about what’s affordable next year, rather than going backwards to pay for what’s applied since April.”
Secretary of Health ‘sympathizes’ with high inflation
Barclay said he sympathized with NHS workers over the high inflation ratesaying it was “why I am so determined to talk about what we can do next year on pay and the many other improvements we need to make the NHS a better place to work”.
Mr Barclay sent a letter to the healthcare unions asking for an “open and honest” discussion on the agreements for 2023/24, to find out what “the unions consider to be a reasonable agreement”.
In it, he promises to discuss the evidence the government will present, adding: “I would also like to use this meeting to understand if there are productivity and other contractual flexibilities and efficiencies that would allow us to review our evidence for the salary review. and will benefit both NHS staff and the NHS.”
The main health unions have agreed to attend the talks but say they will not stop the planned strikes from taking place, urging ministers to open discussions on the current 4 percent deal.
Sara Gorton, chair of the NHS union group and head of health for Unison, said: “The unions intend to make it clear that the government must act to end the current dispute over wages. Talks about what to could happen with NHS wages in 2023/24 won We are not stopping next week’s strike or others planned for the end of this month.
“The Health Secretary must call the pay talks he knows are necessary to cancel industrial action no one wants to take. That means better pay across the NHS now.”
A union source said: “Expectations for Monday’s meeting are very, very low. It is unlikely that there will be any movement at all.
