Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of hospital handover delays on the budgets of ambulance trusts.

No specific assessment has been made. The Medium-Term Planning Framework, published in October 2025, recognises handover delays as a system wide responsibility and effective collaboration between ambulance services, acute trusts, integrated care boards, and others is required to reduce ambulance handover times toward the 15-minute standard.

NHS England continues to monitor average hospital handover times, sharing data with regions to support focussed discussions and identify improvement actions with those trusts not achieving handovers within 45 minutes.