Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to work with NHS bodies in Cumbria to reduce ambulance waiting times in the region.

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, including in Cumbria. The National Health Service is also investing £20 million to upgrade the ambulance fleet in each year to 2024/25, reducing its age profile, increasing productivity and reducing emissions.

NHS bed capacity will be increased by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds to reduce waiting times for admission from accident and emergency and ambulance handover delays and improve ambulance response times. NHS England is also providing targeted support to some hospitals with the greatest delays in the handover of ambulance patients into hospitals to identify short and longer-term interventions.