{"value":{"id":1434603,"askingMemberId":4006,"askingMember":null,"house":"Commons","memberHasInterest":false,"dateTabled":"2022-02-23T00:00:00","dateForAnswer":"2022-02-25T00:00:00","uin":"128243","questionText":"To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to increase capacity in the NHS.","answeringBodyId":17,"answeringBodyName":"Department of Health and Social Care","isWithdrawn":false,"isNamedDay":false,"groupedQuestions":[],"answerIsHolding":false,"answerIsCorrection":false,"answeringMemberId":4362,"answeringMember":null,"correctingMemberId":null,"correctingMember":null,"dateAnswered":"2022-03-02T00:00:00","answerText":"<p>The National Health Service is increasing capacity through the expansion of virtual wards to safely care for patients at home, the use of independent sector capacity and establishing a national discharge taskforce to safely maximise patient discharge. We have also announced the ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’, which sets out £8 billion to allow the NHS recover and expand elective services over the next three years.</p><p>We are investing £2.3 billion in diagnostics to increase the number of community diagnostic centres to 160 by March 2025 and £1.5 billion to support elective recovery, including through the continued deployment of surgical hubs.  This investment will deliver the equivalent of approximately nine million more checks, scans and procedures and 30% more elective activity by 2024/25.</p>","originalAnswerText":"","comparableAnswerText":"","dateAnswerCorrected":null,"dateHoldingAnswer":null,"attachmentCount":0,"heading":"Health Services: Standards","attachments":[],"groupedQuestionsDates":[]},"links":[{"rel":"self","href":"/Questions/1434603","method":"GET"}]}