Ambulance Queues: Health Outcomes

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on health outcomes of the time spent by ambulances waiting in queues to transfer patients into hospital Accident and Emergency departments.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name and draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

We recognise that waiting times can impact outcomes, so patients in queues remain under constant clinical supervision and care and are prioritised according to need. Delays tend to be concentrated in a small number of hospitals, with 29 acute trusts across 35 sites responsible for 57% of the 60-minute handover delays nationally so far this winter. These trusts are receiving intensive support to improve, including through placement of hospital ambulance liaison officers and the safe cohorting of patients.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, half a million acute bed days each year are lost due to delays in discharge directly attributable to non-availability of social care, which leads to bottlenecks in emergency departments and ambulances being unable to unload patients. Does the Minister agree that the split of money raised by the health and social care levy over the next three years therefore needs to be more generous to social care, so people stop having to wait up to seven hours in the back of ambulances?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As the noble Lord will be aware, when the charge was initially announced it was intended to help with social care, which has been neglected for a number of years under successive Governments. Given the pressures of the backlog, the NHS has decided to divert some of those resources to help tackle it. We have invested money in social care in the short-term winter plan, and in the longer term we have announced extra investment to ensure that social care is an attractive career and offers real prospects.