Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her department are taking to reduce ambulance waiting times in Havering.

NHS England advises that London Ambulance Service (LAS) has established an Ambulance Receiving Centre (ARC) at Queen’s Hospital in Romford which oversees care for patients arriving by ambulance, avoiding handover delays and allowing ambulance crews to respond to new calls.

In addition, LAS has established the ‘London Patient Flow’ system which ensures patients are taken to the hospital where the appropriate care can be administered as soon as possible. This aims to manage the number of patients waiting for an ambulance at peak times and reducing the amount of time patients are waiting to be admitted to hospital.

NHS England has allocated an additional £150 million for ambulance service pressures in 2022/23, supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment, retention and other funding requirements.