Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps is her Department is taking to reduce ambulance waiting times in (a) Weaver Vale constituency and (b) the UK.

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services aims to reduce Category 2 response times to 30 minutes on average this year. The plan sets out a range of measures to improve urgent and emergency care performance across the patient pathway. To increase capacity and improve ambulance response times, ambulance services are receiving £200 million of additional funding this year. We have already seen significant improvements in ambulance performance this year. Nationally, average Category 2 response times were more than 45 minutes faster in December than the same month last year, despite increases in demand. The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which serves the Weaver Vale constituency, was almost 34 minutes faster this December.