Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure ambulances can off-load their patients at hospitals within 15 minutes of arrival.

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 assist trusts to identify the causes of delays and implement best practice.

The National Health Service will increase capacity by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds, improving patient flow through hospital and reducing waiting times in transferring ambulance patients to accident and emergency (A&E). In 2020/21, £450 million was invested to upgrade A&E facilities in over 120 NHS trusts, which is increasing physical capacity, reducing overcrowding and facilitating timely ambulance handovers.