Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 23 May 2018 to Question 144262, for what reason his Department decided to collect information on ambulance handover delays in England for three months of the year only; and what assessment he has made of the effect on the NHS and patients of (a) those ambulance handover delays and (b) not collating annual data on those ambulance handover delays.

NHS England is aware that hospital handover delays continue to present challenges to ambulance service operation. Hospital handover delay data were published as part of the NHS England Winter Daily Situation Reports and data continues to be collected and monitored to inform efforts to address delays.