The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, presented the Autumn budget to parliament on Wednesday 22 November. The presentation covered a number aspects including a commitment to help improve some health and care services in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw.
The Government has, 'exceptionally' (outside of the usual budget allocations), increased the Department of Health’s budget by £2.8 billion over the next year, with the Treasury committed to funding £3.5 billion of capital between 2017/18 and 2022/23 - largely to support STP transformation schemes.
For us, in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, this includes two schemes:
- Barnsley Hospital Children’s Emergency Department and Assessment Unit scheme to support the rapid assessment and treatment of children, and;
- Doncaster Urgent and Emergency Care scheme to expand, redesign and improve emergency care
This is in addition to the previous announcement made that £10 million has been set aside to support:
- The expansion of hyper-acute stroke services at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals
- The buying of a new CT scanner and capacity expansion at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals - again to improve stroke as well as cancer care
Showing a commitment to service transformation, these funds will help support us as we develop as a system.
Sir Andrew Cash, lead for Health and Care Working Together in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw, said:
“As a developing accountable care system, we’re really pleased that our work so far and ambition for the health and care of our local populations is being recognised at a national level.
“The transformation funding that has been set aside for various schemes across our region will help us bring about real benefits to patients in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw and we will now work with our local places to support the development of business cases, enabling us to improve the care and experiences of local people.”
Business cases for all schemes will now be developed and need to be approved before any of the transformation funding is released with all updates announced here.