The NHS is set to announce a number of measures to prepare for winter, including rolling out care “traffic control” centres to speed up discharge.

The measures, due to be set out at the NHS England board meeting in Birmingham today, aim to boost capacity and resilience across the NHS.  

A nationwide rollout of “care traffic control” centres will provide one stop for staff to locate and co-ordinate the best and quickest discharge options for patients, either at home or into social or community care. Around a quarter of local areas currently offer this service 12 hours a day, seven days a week.

The centres will bring together teams from across NHS, social care, housing, and voluntary services to make decisions and offer patients everything they need in one place. The NHS expects that a third of patients could be discharged using this model by December.

The NHS is also announcing a scheme to encourage local teams to “overachieve” on performance measures with financial incentives provided for these areas.

At the monthly board meeting today, the NHS will also outline how it is bracing for another winter facing the possibility of higher than usual levels of respiratory illness including Covid, flu and RSV. England’s levels of winter illness often follow Australia’s, which is experiencing one of the biggest flu seasons on record.

The NHS plans to roll out Acute Respiratory Hubs, where patients can get urgent same-day face-to-face assessment, to be available in every part of the country. There are also plans for increased numbers of hospital beds.

Sarah-Jane Marsh, NHS national director of urgent and emergency care, said: “Winter is always a busy time for the NHS and our teams are already under significant pressure – so today, we are launching a plan to further increase resilience across the country.”

Health Minister Helen Whately said: “The government is working closely with the NHS and social care to prepare for next winter. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery Plan, backed by record funding, has already improved A&E performance and ambulance response times. Thanks to that plan the NHS is getting 800 new ambulances, 5,000 extra hospital beds and 10,000 virtual ward beds.”