Edward Argar
MP for Melton and Syston · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I will not keep the Committee long. I am very pleased to see the hon. and gallant Gentleman, the Minister, still in post, as this is a policy area that he has cared deeply about throughout his life. I share the broad support for the instrument expressed by the shadow Minister, my hon.”
“I appreciate it may be set out in the 2006 or 2025 primary parent legislation to these draft regulations, but if he can, I would be grateful for a little clarification. Finally, paragraph 10.1 of the explanatory memorandum refers to the legislation being continuously monitored.”
“I live in my patch and I know that there will be genuine local fury at the contempt this Government have shown for my constituents in approving a Leicester city land grab, which has cross-party opposition locally.”
“Lady was right to highlight in her remarks the importance of timely discharge from hospital as a key element of whether we can achieve that flow into hospital beds and have hospital bed capacity to allow an A&E department or emergency department to function.”
“That should not be a challenge; I suspect that that data is already extant in some part of the system. She is proposing a very moderate measure, which would pull all that together in one place, and allow it to be focused on and looked at in the round, rather than in disparate little penny packets of data.”
“Gentleman’s point, however, that with many of these things—both clinicians and coroners grapple with this—it is often complex to determine the actual most significant contributory factor. My hon.”
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“I am grateful to the hon. Lady. She highlights an issue that I know has exercised Members on both sides of the House. Although progress has been made, I know that a campaign on other elements continues. This makes me sound as I used to occasionally, doing the morning media round and talking to Kay Burley or similar, but I do not want to prejudge what might be said in due course—that was sometimes a wise thing to say when discussing infection rates, restrictions or similar. I do not want to prejudge or predetermine what will be in that strategy, but I genuinely hope and believe that the hon. Lady will be pleased when she sees it. I would not for a moment expect her not to challenge it and seek to improve it, because I have worked and interacted with her before, and that is what Members do in this House.”
“Just as in hospitals, doctors in training are delivering direct patient care while being safely supervised and supported. I hope that our exchange today provides a degree of reassurance that there is significant support in place at local and national level to address performance issues, as well as a determination to improve the provision of health services in Southend West and more broadly in the local area. As you alluded to, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been a regular at the Dispatch Box in these Adjournment debates, certainly over the past two to three years. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing forward this debate, and it has been a great pleasure and privilege to answer it.”
“We made £520 million available to improve access and expand general practice capacity during the pandemic. That was in addition to at least £1.5 billion announced in 2020 to create an additional 50 million general practice appointments by 2024 by increasing and diversifying the workforce. GPs and their teams will always be there for patients, alongside NHS 111 and community pharmacy teams, and it is important that people do not delay in coming forward with health concerns. In 2021-22, we saw the highest ever number of doctors accepting a place on GP training—a record 4,000 trainees, up from 2,671 in 2014. GP trainees support fully qualified GPs, helping to ease workloads and increase capacity, and allowing more patients to get the care they need.”
“We are also building the capacity of NHS 111 to act as the front door to the emergency care system, so that patients receive an ambulance or go to A&E only when needed. This is being supported with £50 million in 2022-23, helping to ensure that people can access urgent care when they need it, increasing the ability to book callers into alternative services or into a timed slot at their local A&E where appropriate. On general practice, we know that general practitioners are still under huge pressure. I am incredibly grateful for the contribution of GPs and their teams over the past two years. They have stepped up to deliver our world-leading vaccination programme while still providing exemplary care for their patients during a pandemic.”
“Friend has said, the call will be passed to the ambulance service for dispatch. However, it is important to understand that the call may still be scrutinised by the ambulance service as to whether an ambulance is really needed. Although no remote triage process can be perfect, there is consistent clinical review of these calls to ensure the wise use of resource, and NHSEI does not believe that significant numbers of ambulances are being dispatched unnecessarily. I have already asked officials in the Department to look into the specific issue that my hon. Friend has raised to understand the extent to which that is happening, whether it is happening unnecessarily and what the consequences are in terms of cost and time resource.”
“Friend has quite rightly highlighted the additional ambulance service staff and the additional ambulances themselves. She is absolutely right to highlight the fact that while the ambulance service may often be the visual manifestation of the challenges faced, it is a system challenge with a number of complex, interrelated parts. My hon. Friend has raised an important issue concerning the NHS 111 service and the automatic dispatch of ambulances. I am advised that when a patient calls 111 and the automated call handler assessment concludes that a low-urgency ambulance should be dispatched, a clinician will call the patient back to validate that that is actually required. I understand that that happens about 95% of the time. Where the patient is not able to be contacted within a fixed timeframe, as my hon.”
“After a successful trial at Lister Hospital, EEAST is now using a rapid release process with some acute hospital partners, where the handover of patients is fast tracked if an urgent response is required in the community. At busy times, EEAST may also offer enhanced pay rates to encourage staff to complete additional shifts. These local initiatives are also supported by national actions to reduce waiting times, including continuous central monitoring, support from the National Ambulance Coordination Centre and the allocation of £150 million of additional system funding for ambulance service pressures in 2022-23, supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment, retention and other funding pressures. My hon.”
“EEAST is working with acute hospitals to develop cohorting areas, where patients can be assessed before going into the emergency department, helping to get ambulances back on the road more quickly. In the context of ambulances, I am reminded of an incident that was recounted to me—I could not possibly reveal the source from which I acquired this information. When she was abseiling to raise money for charity while dressed as Wonder Woman, my hon. Friend spotted ambulances queued up. As soon as she got to the ground and across the car park, she pursued the issue to find out what was going on. Such is her commitment to her constituents and her passion for this issue, and I commend her for that.”
“In the meantime, work to improve local services continues, and I am aware that Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust hospitals and the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust—EEAST—have a range of actions in place to meet the high levels of demand they are experiencing. For example, EEAST is prioritising emergency cases, and, where clinically appropriate, a team of clinicians in its emergency clinical advice and triage service will advise people who do not need an ambulance to use other services. EEAST has also successfully recruited more call handlers and expanded the network of hospital ambulance liaison officers who help to co-ordinate handovers at hospitals, including by diverting crews to other hospitals where they can be seen more quickly.”
“Friend the Member for Southend West this evening, I hope it will come as some encouragement to her that I can say that, following the tenacity of her campaigning on this issue in the Chamber, and indeed outside it, in pursuing me and other Ministers—that is exactly what Members of Parliament are here to do—I have instructed the Department to convene a meeting to review the submitted business case prior to the summer recess, and I anticipate being able to update her and the trust with the outcome of that before the House rises for the summer. That is, obviously, subject to my new Secretary of State’s decision on the recommendation of officials, but I undertake that I have instructed officials to come back to her with that decision before the House rises in a couple of weeks.”
“Friend the Member for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris)—have asked whether the Government will provide the £8.4 million of funding requested to improve Southend emergency department to unlock the business case to allow it to proceed to do further work. While I regret that I am not able to give a clear answer to my hon.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Anna Firth) on securing this important debate. She is a notable advocate for healthcare in her constituency, and a strong champion and voice for her constituents in this place. The NHS has faced extraordinary pressures over the course of the pandemic, and I am sure the whole House will join me in expressing our utmost gratitude to staff for their outstanding work and dedication during this time. I will address a number of my hon. Friend’s points, but, although it is rare to do so at the Dispatch Box, I will come to her main point first and seek to address it head-on. My hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois)—and, although she may not intervene in the debate, the Lord Commissioner of Her Majesty’s Treasury, my hon.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her kind words. I will just conclude by saying that it has been a huge privilege to respond to debates such as this, and I am very grateful to her for affording me that privilege this evening. Question put and agreed to.”
“It is important that I put on record their work on behalf of their constituents in lobbying Ministers and securing that investment from Government in their local hospital trust. There is a wide range of national support in place to improve ambulance performance more widely.”
“There is more to do to get it down to the circa six or seven minutes that it was in May 2019, before the pandemic. We have further to go, but we are focused upon it. Then there is investment in hospitals locally. In this context, I highlight the £1.3 million in 2020-21 of the elective recovery estates funding, the £2 million for technology to help elective recovery, the £2.8 million for A&E upgrades and the £1.7 million previously given to tackle the backlog maintenance in my hon. Friend’s trust. I pay tribute to her, but I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for North Cornwall (Scott Mann) and for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), who in the nature of their roles in this place are not able to intervene directly in this debate.”
“Performance against the four-hour A&E standard improved from 76.9% meeting that in April to just shy of 80% meeting it in May. There is more to do, clearly, but that is a positive direction of travel. The South Western Ambulance Service also saw notable improvements across all response time categories in May compared with April, including a 24-minute reduction in the average category 2 response time. Again, there is still more to do to get those down to target levels, but that is a positive step and a positive direction of travel. There was a reduction of more than one minute in the average response time to the most serious category 1 calls. That does not sound like a huge amount, but in April, when we were seeing challenges, that was a bit over 11 minutes. Shaving a minute off that is still hugely important.”
“To address the wider issues around staff recruitment and retention, the NHS is working with local partners on schemes to address cost of living concerns, including work with the Supportmatch charity on the homeshare scheme, where a householder helps to offer affordable accommodation to someone working in the sector. There is the new guardianship programme developed by Supportmatch, NHS England and NHS Improvement in the south-west that enables householders to offer a spare room to fully vetted and checked health and care workers. Typical agreements can run from two months to two years. We should recognise those sorts of innovations that have grown up locally for the beneficial effects they can have. It is also encouraging to see that these measures are delivering improvements.”
“However, it is important that we continue to work across the system locally and with national support to get the number of delayed discharges down. The CCG locally is also establishing community assessment and treatment units for frail and elderly patients as an alternative to hospital admission, alongside an innovative reablement ward that is now moving to a community hospital location, as my hon. Friend mentioned, as a permanent model of care. Taken together, these interventions will help to ensure the effective flow of patients through hospital, reducing those waiting times and crucially reducing the number of ambulance handover delays, allowing ambulances to get back on the road more rapidly.”
“The aim is partly to increase the number of discharges a day, but it is also to bring more discharges forward to earlier in the day, when it is clinically safe to do so, thus making those discharges much better managed. It is important that all partners work well together on that. At a national level, we have set up a national discharge taskforce. As Minister, I now get weekly statistics about where we are on delayed discharges. My hon. Friend alluded to the number of people who are clinically fit for discharge but have not been discharged, for a variety of reasons. Reducing that by even a small proportion would have a significant impact on the availability of beds and thus patient flow. It is a complex picture with a variety of reasons behind delayed discharges.”
“There has also been an increase in the adult social care domiciliary care pay rate, helping to generate more social care capacity locally and ensure that patients are able to be discharged from hospital to home as soon as they are medically fit. That is supported by the Proud to Care recruitment campaign. I understand that the NHS and Cornwall Council are aiming to launch a targeted campaign in the autumn to encourage more under-25s to work in the care sector. I now turn to discharge. I have highlighted some of the action that is being taken locally to improve patient flow through hospitals by discharging patients more quickly.”
“This will help to increase the flow of patients out of the emergency department, reducing overcrowding and the numbers of ambulance-patient handover delays. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the summit that she and local Cornwall Members convened with me earlier in the year not only to talk about the pressures faced by the system at the time but to begin looking forward to how we can mitigate future pressures. The trust is expanding the use of virtual wards whereby patients are monitored remotely at home rather than being admitted to hospital. This further reduces pressure on local bed capacity and allows for patients to be safely treated at home, which can be beneficial for their recovery. Of course, that is done on the basis of clinical triage and assessment.”
“I assure my hon. Friend, who touched on some of those issues, that significant work is under way across the entire local health and care system to improve patient flow through the hospital, which is the key element in making the system work smoothly to reduce the wait times for emergency care and reduce the numbers of delays in handing ambulance patients over to A&E. Importantly, the NHS Kernow clinical commissioning group, as it currently is—as she rightly highlighted, as of 1 July ICSs become statutory bodies—is continuing to work with all providers to create and commission additional capacity, including a plan to release 80 additional hospital beds now and 20 to 40 further beds in time for the winter.”
“I suspect that much of what I say about Cornwall will apply to Devon as well, as the context both demographically and in terms of patterns of demand are not completely dissimilar. Other factors that play a key part include geography and, as my hon. Friend highlighted, the cost of living, affordable housing, and the ability to retain a skilled workforce. It is also worth remembering, in the context of Cornwall, that whereas many parts of the NHS system see very pressured demand over the winter period that tends to ease somewhat during the summer, allowing them time and space, Cornwall, and, I suspect, Devon as well, being such popular holiday destinations, see a different range of challenges and pressures on the system as holidaymakers come into to area and often need to use these services. I am very sensitive to that point.”
“As she will be aware, other issues as well as demand impact on performance, including, still, although less so than there have been, elements of infection prevention and control measures. There are issues in particular areas with staff absence—for example, still, where there is an outbreak of covid. She also highlighted some very specific local factors that I will turn to. Touching on that, I am aware of the local context that my hon. Friend set out, in that in Cornwall the demand for NHS services has combined with wider systemic issues, placing particular stress on the system. Some of those local factors include the demographic challenges of the age profile of the population and difficulties or challenges in securing the adult social care capacity to meet current and projected demand.”
“The service is still working under exceptional demand and pressures. In May 2022, the ambulance service answered more than 850,000 calls, an increase of 7% on May 2021 figures. Those are national figures; I will turn to my hon. Friend’s local situation in Cornwall in due course. She is right to highlight that the issue is not just with the ambulance service itself, although that is often the visual manifestation or symptom of broader challenges within the health ecosystem and the pressures it is under. It is about handovers and the ability do turnarounds and get the ambulances back on the road, having had a patient safely admitted to the A&E department in an acute setting. I will turn to that in a moment too.”
“It is always a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who may not be my hon. Friend but is my friend. I thank him for his contribution, highlighting the issues at Derriford Hospital. As my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth has made clear, there are complex causes behind the challenges faced by her constituents and those of other right hon. and hon. Members around the country with ambulance services and ambulance response times. As she will know, ambulance services faced significant pressures during the pandemic and continue to do so. I join her and Members on both sides of the House in putting on record, as she did, our gratitude to all the ambulance service staff and the NHS for their outstanding work, both at this time and particularly in recent years.”
“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) on securing this important debate. Since her election, she has been a notable advocate both in this House and more privately with Ministers on behalf of her constituents and those who work in her local healthcare system—as, indeed, are all six Members of Parliament representing seats in Cornwall. May I also take the opportunity—I know we do not always use this sort of language now, but I will—to congratulate the hon. and gallant Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) both on his election to this House and on his contribution to the debate this evening. I look forward to his maiden speech, but it is a privilege for me to have had the opportunity, I think, to be the first Minister to respond to him and congratulate him.”
“We continue to work closely, in terms of additional resources and system pressures, with the ambulance trusts in the south-west and across the country. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting this hugely important issue. Her constituents are lucky to have her representing them in this place. I will continue to work with her and other right hon. and hon. Members, and the system, to deliver the improvements that we all wish to continue seeing.”
“Ambulance trusts receive continuous central monitoring and support from the National Ambulance Coordination Centre, and NHSEI has allocated £150 million of additional system funding for ambulance service pressures in 2022-23, which will support improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment, retention and other funding pressures. National 999 call handler numbers have been boosted to more than 2,300 at the start of May 2022, which is about 400 more than in September 2021, with further potential increases. We are also investing £20 million of capital funding in ambulance trusts in each of the three financial years to 2024-25, in addition to the £50 million national investment across NHS 111.”
“I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) made the point about delays in respect of her county in March, so we are seeing significant challenges across the country. I have highlighted some of the specific points about Cornwall, such as the geography and the distances. It is also about demand, which, as I alluded to, does not abate even slightly in the summer. There is a range of factors—my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth highlighted a number of them—and I have set out some of the measures that we are taking to address them. Nationally, as my hon. Friend alluded to, a wide range of support is in place.”
“The regulations before us will ensure operational continuity of services for patients as the English health system implements integrated care boards, they are supported by the devolved Governments and they provide clarity on the role of integrated care boards within the existing cross-border arrangements. I commend the regulations to the Committee.”
“The regulations are vital to give clarity and ensure consistency among authorities in England and those in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland in respect of who commissions and pays for a patient’s secondary care. To conclude, it is important to be clear that this instrument does not change existing cross-border commissioning arrangements. Health is a devolved matter, and the instrument simply transfers an existing commissioning exception from clinical commissioning groups to integrated care boards, to reflect the changes in the nomenclature in the new legislation. The arrangements are a continuation of the approach to devolved health policy that was introduced in the National Health Service (Clinical Commissioning Groups—Disapplication of Responsibility) Regulations 2013, which are to be revoked as a consequence of the 2022 Act.”
“This instrument provides an exception to that obligation for individuals who are usually resident in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland but are registered with a provider of NHS primary medical services in England. The regulations do not prevent those who are resident in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from accessing health services in England; instead, they simply make clear where the commissioning responsibility sits for those patients. They promote autonomy for devolved Governments to commission secondary care services for their residents, while still allowing patients to access secondary healthcare services in England. In essence, it is about which authority commissions and pays for a patient’s care, not the patient’s right to access care.”
“The regulations relate specifically to the transfer of functions from clinical commissioning groups, which were abolished by the 2022 Act, to newly established statutory integrated care boards. Under the National Health Service Act 2006, which was amended by the 2022 Act, NHS England may set rules so that integrated care boards have “core responsibility” for every person who is provided with NHS primary medical services through registration with a GP practice in their area of England, and for every person resident in the ICB’s area who is not registered with a GP practice. That means that when a person sees a GP in an area, the relevant ICB is responsible for arranging the provision of secondary health services that that person may need.”
“I beg to move, That the Committee has considered the draft National Health Service (Integrated Care Boards: Exceptions to Core Responsibility) Regulations 2022. As always, Ms Nokes, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I will endeavour to be brisk in my remarks this morning. The purpose of the regulations is to ensure operational continuity as the changes from the Health and Care Act 2022 are implemented following Royal Assent in May. That Act strips out needless bureaucracy, improves accountability and enhances integration. It forms the bedrock for the NHS to build on in years to come, which is why I am delighted to be here to debate the regulations that will facilitate its implementation.”
“However, we got there and received Royal Assent for a piece of legislation that will go a long way towards building on the success we have seen so far in improving health outcomes in this country, and that will enable the NHS to go forward with a strong base on which to build and from which to evolve. I again commend the regulations to the Committee. Question put and agreed to.”
“The shadow Minister asked how many more consequential regulations we anticipate—I think she was referring specially to those that relate to the implementation of ICBs and integrated care systems by 1 July on a statutory footing. To date, I think I have seen, commented on and approved a further five instruments. They are overwhelmingly technical in nature, and replicate existing arrangements but change the language and nomenclature used. Of course, one of those sets of regulations will formally, legally commence these provisions from 1 July—that has to be done through regulations. We would of course have liked to have seen Royal Assent earlier than we did, but a considerable number of amendments were tabled, both in our House and in the other place, so it took a considerable amount of time to navigate through the parliamentary process.”
“I am grateful to the shadow Minister for her remarks and for her support for this instrument. It was a pleasure to serve opposite her for, as she alluded to, many months in the the Health and Care Bill Committee, before she was shadow Minister. She is right to talk about the length of time that that legislation spent going through Parliament before it received Royal Assent; of course, we could not introduce these regulations until Royal Assent was granted in the middle of May, although we did secure the early commencement of the 2022 Act’s provisions in order to be able to bring forward the relevant consequential regulations as swiftly as possible.”
“This Government committed to growing the NHS workforce, including our pledge of 50,000 more nurses by 2024, and we are delivering on that, as we are delivering across Government, with almost 31,000 more nurses so far as of March 2022—the latest data point we have.”
“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work supporting the NHS and healthcare in this country both prior to and subsequent to his election to this House. I would be delighted to visit Cramlington with him—indeed, on the same visit perhaps I could visit his local health facilities to see modular construction in action. I should also say that his ever-efficient office has already invited me.”
“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his important question. As he highlights, we are investing more in more nurses, but there is also a large piece of work to do on health education and improving access to those services for people with diabetes. I urge him to look forward with eager anticipation to the health disparities White Paper.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to this important issue as well as for highlighting what is going on in Norfolk and the opportunities to learn from that. The Government have put record funding into mental health, and I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is due to meet him and supporters of the campaign soon.”
“I think that I detected the hint of a question in there. On a serious point, I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, as I often do on such occasions, notwithstanding the challenges that she throws at us, for the work that she does in the NHS and the work that she did before she was elected to the House. Through her, I also pay tribute to NHS workers up and down the country for their work. The Government have put in place record support for our NHS, including nurses, which is about supporting those already on the frontline in the profession—that is absolutely right—and about growing that workforce to ensure that the work that needs to be done is spread among more people. That is exactly what we have done. We have record numbers in our NHS workforce, and we are well on target to meet our manifesto commitment on more nurses.”
“NHS trusts have an integral role in the local health and care system. We expect appropriate engagement between integrated care boards, integrated care providers and the respective NHS providers in an area. An NHS trust is a formal partner of an ICB if it provides any services in the ICB area and has the function of participating in the nomination of members to the board. Regulations give details as to how to determine which trusts that provide services in an ICB area should participate in the nomination process.”
“The hon. Lady and I speak regularly about different aspects of her local health system, and I am happy to do so again on this matter. I do not know the exact details behind the specific example, but I do not think it relates directly to how ICSs are configured in statute and guidance. I would be happy to meet her to understand the local factors that may have contributed to the situation.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend; he rightly alludes to the fact that he is a strong champion of his constituents and has met me on a number of occasions to argue the merits of the Thornbury health centre. As he will be aware, we now have a multi-year capital settlement for our NHS, which will allow us the opportunity, through local systems, to consider the most appropriate projects for investment.”
“It was a great pleasure to visit my hon. Friend before the jubilee weekend and to meet the staff who do such an amazing job at his local hospital. As ever, his puts his case clearly and firmly for a new hospital to replace the QE in King’s Lynn, and we hope to be able to announce the longlist of those expressions of interest in due course.”
“I hope my hon. Friend will feel free to share the detail of his survey and the responses with me. I am also conscious that I have some outstanding correspondence from him—I checked that this morning—and I will ensure that I respond to it in the next few days. I will pull it out of the system and ensure that he gets answers to the specific points he raised. I thank my hon. Friend, once again, for rightly raising this important issue, securing an important debate on the Floor of the House today and doing what he does so well: championing his constituents’ best interests, and making sure that Ministers have no opportunity to forget them and to forget the people of Rugby. Indeed, he ensures that they are impressed upon our minds. I look forward to meeting him to discuss this further, and I hope that will happen shortly.”
“In recent years, £450 million has been spent on expanding A&E departments, and there has been a £55 million investment in strengthening ambulance trusts and keeping an extra 156 ambulances in service and on the road to bolster capacity and resilience during the winter period. I hear the passionate case my hon. Friend makes. There is significant support in place, both locally and nationally, to help ensure constituents in Rugby can access the care they need when they need it, but I also wish to make a number of points. First, I am happy to meet him to discuss this matter. I was going to offer to make the short hop down the M69 and the M6, but from what he has says I have been pipped to the post by my boss arranging to do that visit; he has perhaps upgraded the offer, with the Secretary of State rather than a mere Minister of State.”
“Friend also rightly highlighted the “Our Jay” campaign and the number of externally mounted defibrillators, which is a hugely important topic. It is sad that there is sometimes an unwillingness to fund externally mounted defibrillators due to the despicable behaviour of utterly heartless individuals who, for some reason, think they have the right to vandalise or steal this life-saving kit. It is a sad reflection on them, and I sincerely hope they never find themselves in a situation where they need such kit to be available. I pay tribute to the “Our Jay” campaign. More broadly, we have put a number of measures in place to try to ease the pressure on A&E and ambulance services. The discharge taskforce is helping to free up patient beds by ensuring that patients who are fit to be discharged are discharged more rapidly.”