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 implications for his policies of the serious incidences reported by Yorkshire Ambulance Service in each of the last two years; what information his Department holds on the lessons learned following those incidences; and what steps his Department has put in place to help address those within the NHS.

Whilst the Department holds no specific information about lessons learned from serious incidents reported by Yorkshire Ambulance Service in the last two years, these incidents should be closed by the relevant commissioner when they are satisfied that the investigation report and action plan meet the required standard. This ensures that the fundamental purpose of investigation, which is to ensure that lessons can be learnt to prevent similar incidents recurring, is realised.

NHS England published the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework in August 2022. It replaces the Serious Incident Framework and fundamentally shifts how the National Health Service responds to patient safety incidents for learning and improvement. All providers are expected to transition to the new framework by Autumn 2023.

To address the pressures the ambulance service is facing, the NHS has published a delivery plan for recovering emergency care, which aims to reduce Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes next year with further improvements towards pre-pandemic levels the following year. Backed up by a £1 billion dedicated fund, the plan will include the delivery of 800 new ambulances including specialist mental health ambulances.