Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to respond to increasing demand for the Ambulance Service.

The Autumn Statement provides an additional £3.3 billion in each of 2023/24 and 2024/25 to enable rapid action to improve urgent and emergency care performance towards pre-pandemic levels. The National Health Service is publishing recovery plans in the coming weeks to improve Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes.

In addition, as announced on the 9 January, the Government is immediately making available an additional £50 million in capital funding to expand hospital discharge lounges and ambulance hubs. This will help with the increased demand on the ambulance service this winter by improving patient flow through hospitals and reducing handover delays.