Nearly £50m for extra hospital beds

The new wards at George Eliot followed "months of planning", managers said

NHS trusts in Warwickshire, Shropshire and Staffordshire have been awarded nearly £50m by the government to provide dozens of extra hospital beds.

The money is part of £250m funding to provide an extra 5,000 hospital beds in England to reduce winter pressures and help lower record waiting lists.

However, critics have questioned why the beds will not be available earlier than January, and who would staff the new wards.

The funding includes £15.1m to create two new 30-bed wards at George Eliot Hospital in Nuneaton.

Rishi Sunak, who spoke to hospital staff in Milton Keynes, said the new beds would mean more people could be treated quickly

These would increase the hospital's ward capacity by 20%, according to the trust that runs it, and open very early in 2024 "during what is predicted to be one of the busiest periods the NHS has ever faced".

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust has been given £21.4m and said it would be used to create 52 extra beds.

University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust (UHNM) has been awarded £13.4m.

It said it would be used to help develop a 30-bed facility at the Royal Stoke University Hospital to increase capacity for same-day emergency care and for additional acute inpatient care beds.

Under the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan funding, 900 new beds in England should be ready by January and the remainder soon after.

'Elephant in the room'

NHS Providers, which represents trusts, said they would welcome the support, but were concerned the extra capacity would only be in place from January.

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the "elephant in the room" was who would staff the additional beds.

The Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals are set to undergo a wider multimillion-pound reorganisation

UHNM said its winter planning, which had begun, involved recruiting more staff, including 110 nurses from overseas.

Its "winter wards" would provide 76 extra beds and with partners it was investing in "virtual wards" to support up to 130 people to get the care they needed at home.

In Warwickshire, managers said George Eliot Hospital had been awarded an additional £6m to get its new wards ready "as soon as possible".

The trust added the wards, on top of its Captain Sir Tom Moore unit, would also allow it to move patients in from older facilities, freeing them up temporarily to be refurbished.