Tag Archives: scottish parliament elections

• Ed Davey speech: “Make the NHS winterproof”
• Cole-Hamilton comments as Scotland marks ten years since Independence Referendum

Ed Davey speech: “Make the NHS winterproof”

In his speech to Liberal Democrat Conference in Brighton today, Leader Ed Davey will call on the Government to set up a new “Winterproof NHS Taskforce” to put an end to the annual winter crises in the health service.

With NHS chiefs warning that “this winter is likely to see urgent and emergency care services come under significant strain”, Ed Davey will urge the Government to “make this year the last winter crisis in our NHS”.

Last winter, ambulances across England collectively spent a total of 112 years waiting outside hospitals to hand patients over, according to official NHS figures. Between November 2023 and March 2024, 732,000 patients faced A&E waits of over 4 hours to be admitted, with 228,000 waiting more than 12 hours.

For the first time, the Taskforce would bring together a team of experts reporting directly to the Health Secretary, responsible for strengthening coordination across the NHS and allocating long-term funding and resources to prevent winter crises.

Over the past seven years, the Government has announced an average of £376 million of emergency funding each year to tackle the NHS winter crisis. Under the Liberal Democrat proposal, the new Taskforce would instead manage a ringfenced fund of £1.5 billion over the next four years, to build resilience in hospital wards, A&E departments, ambulance services and patient discharging.

This would allow integrated care boards and NHS Trusts to plan their budgets more efficiently to prevent winter crises, instead of just receiving emergency funding from the Government at the last minute.