Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure the improved performance of the North East Ambulance NHS Trust in meeting its response time targets.

We expect all National Health Service ambulance trusts, including the North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, to take action to ensure they meet the response time targets, and that commissioners oversee and support this process.

Ambulance services are facing unprecedented demand, delivering over 2,800 more emergency journeys every day compared to 2010 and still continue to respond to the majority of life-threatening cases in under eight minutes.

The Department continues to work closely with NHS England and NHS Improvement to monitor and support performance across all ambulance trusts in 2016-17. In the longer term, NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will aim to tackle the root causes of the increasing demand on urgent and emergency care services.