Worthing Hospital to get funding boost from Government
It's part of a major plan to tackle rising waiting NHS lists ahead of the winter.
Worthing Hospital is to get a £4.5 million pound funding boost as part of plans to boost NHS capacity and tackle record waiting lists before winter.
Thirty hospital trusts, including University Hospitals Sussex, are being given a share of £250 million under Government plans to create an extra 900 hospital beds.
It forms part of their Urgent and Emergency Care recovery plan, which was published in January.
In Worthing Hospital's case, the money will be spent on improvements to Urgent Treatment Centres, which aim to reduce waiting times, as well as on expanding Same Day Emergency Care services, which can assess a patient's needs without them having to be transferred to a hospital ward.
The two-year blueprint to create extra hospital beds - backed by £1 billion - aims to increase NHS capacity with 5,000 new beds, improve patient experience and reduce waiting times.
The NHS said it expects the majority of the projects to be completed by January.
It comes after new data from NHS England revealed waiting lists had reached a record 7.6 million at the end of June.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: "Cutting waiting lists is one of my top five priorities, so this year the Government has started planning for winter earlier than ever before and the public can be reassured we are backing the NHS with the resources it needs.
"These 900 new beds will mean more people can be treated quickly, speeding up flow through hospitals and reducing frustratingly long waits for treatment."
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said the move should allow the NHS to "get ahead" of winter pressures while creating a "sustainable" health service that is "fit for the future".
He added: "Creating additional hospital capacity will support staff to provide the best possible care and treat patients more quickly, helping us to improve waiting times."
RCN general secretary and chief executive, Pat Cullen, said: "The elephant in the room is who will staff these additional beds? Nursing staff are already spread too thinly over too many patients.
"Everyday nursing staff are under unsustainable pressure, with over 40,000 vacant nursing posts in England. It is leaving our patients receiving lower quality care, often in inappropriate settings, and our colleagues burnt out and heading towards the door.
"If the Prime Minister is serious about cutting waiting times, he should not ignore the nursing staff walking out of the profession. He will continue to fail to meet his pledge to cut NHS waiting times if nursing is not seen as an attractive, well-paid profession to join or stay in."
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting accused the Government of saddling the health service with "huge backlogs, unacceptable waiting times and an annual winter crisis".
He said: "Now Rishi Sunak is offering a sticking plaster, which comes nowhere near the 12,000 beds the Conservatives have cut over the last 13 years."
Health minister Will Quince said hospitals where the new beds are to be created have set out how they plan to staff them.
"Staffing is a key component of this plan," he told GB News.
"The additional staffing numbers will come from that £1 billion budget, so the additional revenue funding, which will flow through NHS England through to those 30 trusts.
"We have of course over the past year seen an additional 6,000 doctors and 15,000 nurses, but each of those trusts that have committed to build those 900 additional beds within their trust have assured us and NHS England that they will be able to staff them with the funding supplied."