Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to improve recruitment and retention in the ambulance service.

Recruitment and retention of ambulance service staff is the responsibility of individual ambulance trusts. Many are taking direct action in this area now with national and international recruitment campaigns.

There are almost 2,000 additional paramedics in the system now than in 2010 and we are training another 1,900 over the next five years.