Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Government is taking to reduce ambulance waiting times.

NHS England has allocated an £150 million for ambulance service pressures in 2022/23, supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment, retention and other funding requirements. The National Health Service is also investing £20 million in the ambulance fleet in each year to 2024/25. This will increase ambulance capacity by reducing the age profile of the fleet, increasing productivity and capacity while decreasing emissions through 30 zero emission ambulances.

The number of NHS ambulance staff and support staff has increased by almost 40% since April 2010. Health Education England has a mandated target to train 3,000 paramedic graduates nationally per annum from 2021 to 2024. St John Ambulance has been contracted to deliver auxiliary ambulance services, providing national surge capacity of at least 5,000 hours per month as needed to support the ambulance response during periods of increased pressure, allowing NHS ambulance crews to respond to emergency calls.