Today the Government can announce their plans for winter and the allocation of £250 million funding to NHS England. This money will be distributed by NHS England to the areas that need it most in 2013-14, working with Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority (TDA). This follows the Prime Minister’s announcement in August that A&E departments will benefit from an additional £500 million over the next two years to address seasonal pressures.

It is important to provide the NHS with greater support during the winter period, particularly at a time when the scale of the challenge facing the NHS and wider health and care system is becoming increasingly clear. It is essential that even when demand is at its highest, patients get the excellent support they need and rightly expect. Emergency admissions have risen by 32% over the last decade and our main priority is to make sure the NHS can cope with this increasing pressure, not only this winter but also for the future.

As in previous years, a robust monitoring process will be in place from the beginning of November until the end of February and data will be available online to local organisations to support their management and co-ordination.

NHS England, Monitor and the NHS Trust Development Authority have been working jointly to determine where this funding will make the greatest impact and make a demonstrable difference to patients. The funding will be targeted in the following way:

£15 million towards securing a reliable NHS 111 service throughout the winter period; subject to completion of current scrutiny of plans, a total provisional amount of £221 million for the 53 high-risk systems; and a small contingency of £14 million for use for final settlements for trusts to use in the winter.

Indicative amounts have been allocated, subject to change, to the following trusts outlined as follows:

The additional allocation will require an increase to the revenue budget for NHS England for 2013-14, as specified in the mandate. This revision to the mandate will be laid before Parliament in due course⁽¹⁾.

One of the avoidable pressures on the NHS is flu. On average around 750,000 patients see their GP with flu symptoms and nearly 5,000 people die each year. Flu levels have been relatively low over the past two years but this does not mean they will not go up this year. And if cases of flu do increase, the pressure on A&Es will also increase. The best way for people at risk from flu to protect themselves, their families and—in the case of NHS staff—their patient is to get the flu vaccine.

For the first time, young children aged two and three will be offered the innovative nasal spray vaccine to protect them against flu. Young children’s close contact with each other means they are likely to transmit the virus to other more vulnerable groups—including infants and the elderly.

Front-line health care workers, by the very nature of their jobs, deal with people who are unwell every day and on average, around 27,000 people spend time in hospital with flu every year. NHS staff can play an important role in not picking up the flu virus and passing it on to other patients who are often people who are already poorly and vulnerable to infection by simply having the flu vaccine. Less than half of front-line NHS staff get vaccinated against flu, and in some hospitals this figure drops to fewer than one in five. This is why we want to significantly boost the number of health care workers getting the flu vaccine to 75%. Trusts will not be eligible to receive a portion of the money in future years if they do not vaccinate 75% of their staff this year, except in exceptional circumstances where they can prove to the TDA, Monitor and NHS England that they have robust plans in place to ensure they meet this ambitious target the following year.

⁽¹⁾The mandate is the document published annually by the Secretary of State under section 13A of the National Health Service Act 2006, specifying for NHS England its objectives and revenue and capital budgets.