To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding has been allocated to delivering the commitments on respiratory health in the NHS Long Term Plan for (a) 2019-20 and (b) 2020-21; and how much of that funding will be reallocated to long-covid related services.
Answered on
24 November 2020
The National Respiratory Programme is a sub-programme of the wider Cardiovascular Disease and Respiratory programme. The Cardiovascular Disease and Respiratory Programme was allocated NHS Long Term Plan funding as follows:
- 2019/20: £8.4 million; and
- 2020/21: £15 million.
During the initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic all national programmes were asked to prioritise their programmes to ensure they reflected the needs of patients with COVID-19 and to adapt work projects for the new infection control measures.
To support and strengthen respiratory services, an investment of £2 million was made to establish respiratory clinical networks for the first time in England and £46,000 was also used to contribute to the development of the Your COVID-19 Recovery online platform. The Cardiovascular Disease and Respiratory programme also reprioritised £3.5 million to support people recovering from long COVID-19.