Report to:

East Sussex Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC)

 

Date of meeting:

 

14 December 2023

By:

Assistant Chief Executive

 

Title:

NHS Sussex Winter Plan 2023/24

Purpose:

To provide an overview of the NHS Sussex Winter Plan 2023/24.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Committee is recommended to consider and comment on the report.

1.            Background & supporting information

1.1.        Winter planning is an annual national requirement of the NHS to ensure that the local health and social care system has sufficient plans in place to effectively manage the capacity and demand pressures anticipated during the Winter period. The Sussex System Winter Plan is a whole system health and social care plan, recognising the interdependencies of the system to meet the needs of the local population. The Plan period runs this year from November 2023 to April 2024 and was approved by the Integrated Care Board’s Executive Committee on 6th November 2023. 

1.2.        Winter Plans are developed with input from partners across the system including local authorities, providers, commissioners and the voluntary sector. This report highlights the Sussex wide and East Sussex specific elements of the plan. It should be noted that the system has continued to see sustained high demand on urgent and emergency care services over the past year. The causes include increased demand across primary, secondary, community and mental health services, challenges in recovery of productivity post pandemic, staff vacancies and issues impacting on staff morale (including the industrial action). These challenges will continue over the winter months and will be compounded by additional factors such as seasonally driven increases in illness (acute respiratory, flu, Covid, norovirus etc), cold weather and the ongoing impact from cost-of-living pressures which constrains the ability of the most vulnerable in our population to keep themselves well. 

1.3.        A summary of the NHS Sussex Winter Plan 2023/24 is attached as Appendix 1 for consideration by the HOSC and covers the following topics:

o   Demand management

§  Optimising use of 111 (phone and online)

§  Optimising use of primary care resource (including community pharmacy) 

§  High intensity users

o   Admission Avoidance

§  Single Point of Access (AASPA)

§  Virtual Wards (VW)

§  Urgent Community Response (UCR)

§  Palliative End of life Care

o   Hospital Flow

§  Emergency Department (ED) Improvement Plans

§  Mental Health Crisis Improvement plan

§  Community Flow Improvement plan

§  Discharge Improvement Plans (acute, community and mental health)

o   Frailty

o   Respiratory

o   Clinical Leadership

o   Paediatric RSV

o   Critical Care Capacity

o   Workforce

§  Wellbeing and cost of living support

§  Staff Availability

o   Infection Prevention and Control (IPC)

o   Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) providers

o   Local authorities

o   Planned Care, Cancer and Diagnostics

o   Communications

o   Roles and responsibilities

o   Management of day-to-day operational pressures

 

2.         Conclusion and reasons for recommendations

2.1       HOSC is recommended to consider and comment on the NHS Sussex Winter Plan.

 

PHILIP BAKER
Assistant Chief Executive

 

Contact Officer: Patrick Major, Scrutiny and Policy Support Officer
Email: patrick.major@eastsussex.gov.uk