Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has taken recent steps to help improve ambulance handover times at hospitals.

NHS England is providing targeted support to some hospitals facing the greatest delays in the handover of ambulance patients into the care of hospitals, to identify short and longer-term interventions. This is in addition to a new national winter improvement collaborative programme to help other trusts identify the causes of handover delays and implement best practice.

The National Health Service plan for winter will increase bed capacity by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds, improving patient flow through hospital and reducing long waiting times in transferring ambulance patients to accident and emergency (A&E). This complements the investment £450 million in 2020/21 to upgrade A&E facilities in over 120 NHS trusts to increase capacity, reduce overcrowding and clear ambulance queues more quickly.