Millions as West Mid prepares for winter

The Government funding is part of a £250m boost to 53 NHS trusts for accident and emergency (A&E) departments across the country.

The funding will be shared with the hospital’s community health and social care partners.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged to improve care for vulnerable older people including increasing hospital capacity and joined-up care to reduce the need for repeated trips to A&E.

West Middlesex NHS Trust chief executive Dame Jacqueline Docherty said: “In the past few years we have carried out a lot of work in conjunction with our local healthcare partners to improve services for patients attending A&E.

“Our A&E department is currently in the top five in London for waiting times and we want to maintain this performance throughout the busy winter period.

“This additional funding will be used to better manage surges in demand, ensuring that we provide safe and high quality care consistently even at the busiest times.”

Dr Nicola Burbidge, chairman of Hounslow Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “This is good news for local people and local health and social care services as the extra funding will help us to ensure that all services are robust and able to cope with the expected increase in demand over the winter period.”

Next year another £250m will be available to NHS trusts whose own staff flu vaccination rates hit 75 per cent this year.

Last year fewer than half of frontline NHS staff had the flu jab and in some hospitals the figure was less than one in five.

Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies said: “Frontline staff, by the very nature of their jobs, deal with people who are unwell every day.

“Simply by having the flu vaccine, as recommended by the GMC, NHS staff can play an important role in not picking up the flu virus and passing it on to other patients – often people who are already poorly and vulnerable to infection.

“I urge all frontline staff to get vaccinated and encourage their colleagues to do so too.”