Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 20 April 2026.
Tan Dhesi
Chair, Defence Committee, Chair, Defence Committee
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps he has taken to improve NHS capacity in Accident and Emergency departments in (a) Slough and (b) Berkshire.
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Decisions on the commissioning and configuration of local National Health Services, including accident and emergency (A&E) departments and urgent treatment centres, are the responsibility of integrated care boards, working with their local NHS trusts. These organisations are best placed to determine how services should operate to meet the needs of their local populations.
Within Slough and Berkshire, a range of steps have been taken over the past year to improve A&E capacity and patient flow. These include expansion of Same Day Emergency Care, improved discharge and community capacity, enhanced access to urgent care alternatives such as urgent treatment centres, and focused work on patient flow and ambulance handovers.
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
