Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of financial resources available to ambulance services for emergency response.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The funding of ambulance services is a matter for local National Health Service clinical commissioning groups. As part of a £400 million package of resilience funding for 2016/17, £50 million was to support a number of national initiatives including additional resilience support for ambulance services.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the ambulance service prioritises the severity of patients' symptoms to ensure that each case is dealt with appropriately.
Answered by Philip Dunne
There are three ambulance response time standards for immediately life threatening (Category A) calls as follows:
- at least 75% of Category A Red 1 calls to be responded to within eight minutes, from the time the call is connected to the control room. Red 1 calls are the most time critical, covering cardiac arrest patients who are not breathing and do not have a pulse, and other severe conditions such as airway obstruction;
- at least 75% of Category A Red 2 calls to be responded to within eight minutes, from the time that either the chief complaint is identified, the call handler determines a priority response is required, or after 60 seconds has elapsed, whichever is the sooner. Red 2 calls are serious but less immediately time critical, covering conditions such as stroke and fits; and
- at least 95% of all Category A calls (Red 1 and Red 2) to receive a fully equipped ambulance vehicle able to transport the patient in a clinically safe manner within 19 minutes of the request being made.
Lower acuity calls where there is still a need for an ambulance are called “Green calls”. Response times for these are agreed and set locally.
Ambulance services use approved call prioritisation systems to map symptoms against the categories. Call categorisation symptoms are reviewed annually by the Emergency Calls Prioritisation Advisory Group.
The Department continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to monitor and support performance in 2016-17. NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will transform ambulance services from a service based on a model of transportation to one of clinical assessment and treatment. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how the ambulance service prioritises the severity of patients' symptoms to minimise the time taken for ambulances to reach patients.
Answered by Philip Dunne
There are three ambulance response time standards for immediately life threatening (Category A) calls as follows:
- at least 75% of Category A Red 1 calls to be responded to within eight minutes, from the time the call is connected to the control room. Red 1 calls are the most time critical, covering cardiac arrest patients who are not breathing and do not have a pulse, and other severe conditions such as airway obstruction;
- at least 75% of Category A Red 2 calls to be responded to within eight minutes, from the time that either the chief complaint is identified, the call handler determines a priority response is required, or after 60 seconds has elapsed, whichever is the sooner. Red 2 calls are serious but less immediately time critical, covering conditions such as stroke and fits; and
- at least 95% of all Category A calls (Red 1 and Red 2) to receive a fully equipped ambulance vehicle able to transport the patient in a clinically safe manner within 19 minutes of the request being made.
Lower acuity calls where there is still a need for an ambulance are called “Green calls”. Response times for these are agreed and set locally.
Ambulance services use approved call prioritisation systems to map symptoms against the categories. Call categorisation symptoms are reviewed annually by the Emergency Calls Prioritisation Advisory Group.
The Department continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to monitor and support performance in 2016-17. NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will transform ambulance services from a service based on a model of transportation to one of clinical assessment and treatment. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average ambulance response time was in Dorset in November 2016.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The data requested is not collected centrally.
NHS England publish data on the performance of ambulance trusts in respect of the number of Category A Red One and Red Two calls responded to within eight minutes and the number of Category A calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene of the incident against the 19 minute standard.
This data is published on a monthly basis at both an England national level and at individual ambulance trust level. The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the NHS across South West England, including Dorset. However, as of April 2016, SWASFT commenced the Ambulance Response Programme clinical coding trial and therefore only data up to but not including this date is available for Red 1, Red 2 and Category A calls.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average ambulance response time was in Dorset in January 2017.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The data requested is not collected centrally.
NHS England publish data on the performance of ambulance trusts in respect of the number of Category A Red One and Red Two calls responded to within eight minutes and the number of Category A calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene of the incident against the 19 minute standard.
This data is published on a monthly basis at both an England national level and at individual ambulance trust level. The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the NHS across South West England, including Dorset. However, as of April 2016, SWASFT commenced the Ambulance Response Programme clinical coding trial and therefore only data up to but not including this date is available for Red 1, Red 2 and Category A calls.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average ambulance response time was in Dorset in December 2016.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The data requested is not collected centrally.
NHS England publish data on the performance of ambulance trusts in respect of the number of Category A Red One and Red Two calls responded to within eight minutes and the number of Category A calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene of the incident against the 19 minute standard.
This data is published on a monthly basis at both an England national level and at individual ambulance trust level. The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the NHS across South West England, including Dorset. However, as of April 2016, SWASFT commenced the Ambulance Response Programme clinical coding trial and therefore only data up to but not including this date is available for Red 1, Red 2 and Category A calls.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the average ambulance response times were in Dorset in the last five years.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The data requested is not collected centrally.
NHS England publish data on the performance of ambulance trusts in respect of the number of Category A Red One and Red Two calls responded to within eight minutes and the number of Category A calls resulting in an ambulance arriving at the scene of the incident against the 19 minute standard.
This data is published on a monthly basis at both an England national level and at individual ambulance trust level. The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the NHS across South West England, including Dorset. However, as of April 2016, SWASFT commenced the Ambulance Response Programme clinical coding trial and therefore only data up to but not including this date is available for Red 1, Red 2 and Category A calls.
Asked by: Michael Tomlinson (Conservative - Mid Dorset and North Poole)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve ambulance response times.
Answered by Philip Dunne
The Department continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to monitor and support performance in 2016-17.
NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will transform ambulance services from a service based on a model of transportation to one of clinical assessment and treatment. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.