Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the length of time taken by ambulances services to answer 999 calls in each month of the last 12 months.

The following table shows the mean average answering time for 999 call in each of the last 12 months.

In March 2022, a £1.3 million campaign to recruit 999 call handlers was launched. As of May 2022, the number of 999 call handlers nationally has increased to over 2,300. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also allocated £150 million to address pressures on the ambulance service in 2022/23, supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment and retention.