THE NHS and partner bodies in Gwent will receive a share of Wales-wide funding of £20 million to help deal with extra pressures during the winter.

,Aneurin Bevan University Health Board and Wales' six other health boards will share £16m of the money to support the programmes contained in their winter plans, which will be delivered alongside the ambulance service, councils, and the charitable and voluntary sectors.

The aim is to help people to access care closer to home, to ensure there is sufficient available hospital capacity, and to help people to leave hospital for home when they are ready.

The remaining £4m will be used to fund all-Wales agreed priorities for the winter, and will be targeted at:

• Extending GP access into evenings, weekends, and in some areas bank holidays, to help people access care closer to home;

• Supporting older people who have fallen and are not injured to stay at home;

• Increasing the number of paramedics and nurses in the ambulance clinical contact centres, to provide advice over the phone and help prevent unnecessary journeys to hospital;

• Increasing capacity in emergency departments to support patient flow and help resettle older, frail people at home after they have been assessed;

• Spreading good practice across Wales from an award-winning Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust pilot project, to use highly skilled paramedics to help keep people at home;

• Supporting the ‘My Winter Health Plan’ initiative to help clinicians who visit people at home understand more about their patients' long term conditions, and to prevent hospital admission where alternative care would better meet their needs.

Health boards are putting the finishing touches to their winter plans, and hope through them to ease the pressures caused by increased demand. They also hope the winter weather is not as extreme as that which much of the UK, including Wales, last February and March, causing widespread disruption to services.

“Last winter was one of the most difficult the NHS has faced in several years," said health secretary Vaughan Gething.

“Blizzard and freezing conditions, more people using GP and emergency care services, increased hospital admissions for older people with complex conditions, together with the largest number of flu cases since the pandemic in 2009, meant our NHS was under unprecedented pressure.

“I have made the decision to allocate this funding earlier than in previous years, to ensure local health and care teams are as prepared as they can be for the winter to come.”