An extra £6.48 million of government funding has gone to local hospitals to help staff prepare for winter.

It is hoped to help ease pressures after a national crisis in the NHS at the turn of this year.

The money was allocated after East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust put forward plans to help with its emergency care capacity.

The investment is part of £145 million for 81 schemes at hospitals across the country.

The Department for Health says the funding will enable the NHS to deliver additional beds, redevelop A&E units and upgrade wards, enhance bed management systems, and improve same-day emergency care.

Local hospitals benefitting will be Buckland in Dover, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Margate, Kent and Canterbury, the William Harvey in Ashford and the Royal Victoria in Folkestone.

Dover MP Charlie Elphicke commented: “This funding will be well received by the hardworking staff who keep our hospitals running day and night throughout the difficult winter period.

“Every year our local NHS staff go the extra mile, working additional shifts and long hours.

“We must do everything we can to support them and put patients’ care first.”

Last winter was the NHS's worst for coping on record with unprecedented levels of patient waiting times, bed shortages and ambulance queues.

According to national media reports the final winter analysis for 2017/18, publicised in March, showed that between last December and February a record 163,298 patients waited more than half an hour to be handed over to A&E departments.

Hospitals had just 97,897 beds open, on average, at any point over the winter, the lowest number on record.

These figures were compiled by Labour and verified by the House of Commons Library.

Last winter all pre-planned surgeries at the Harvey and QEQM were postponed for four months due to demands on their A&E departments.

Mr Elphicke has fought for a fairer share of healthcare for his constituency and this has been followed by the opening of the new £24 million Buckland Hospital in 2015.

He has also campaigned to bring more GPs to the area and successfully campaigned in Parliament. with fellow Kent MPs, to deliver a new £30 million East Kent Medical School.

It was announced in March that it would be placed in Canterbury and would lead to more doctors and nurses being trained locally.

For the short term Mr Elphicke has called on Kent County Council’s health overview scrutiny committee to launch an inquiry into GP recruitment in south Kent.

He has also asked the committee to examine what South Kent Coast Clinical Commissioning Group is doing to boost the number of doctors locally – and to support existing ones.