Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has had made on the adequacy of North-West Ambulance Service ambulance response times.

No recent assessment has been made. In 2022/23, NHS England and NHS Improvement have allocated £150 million to address pressures on the ambulance service, including supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment and retention. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also tendered a £30 million contract for auxiliary ambulance services to provide national surge capacity as needed and support ambulance response times during periods of increased demand.

NHS England’s National Ambulance Coordination Centre provides central monitoring of and support for ambulance trusts to improve patient handovers at hospitals, preventing further delays in response times.