Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I know that both the Department for Health and Social Care and NHS England have a strong working relationship with the organisations that the noble Viscount has mentioned. On the detail of that work in terms of the heat health alert, I will have to write to him.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, handover times at hospitals of nine hours are not uncommon and 26 hours is not unheard of. What are the Government doing to ensure that the other emergency services are working in co-ordination with the ambulance service to make sure that people who need urgent care are getting it?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, I think there has been some co-ordination with other services looking at this issue. Of course, it varies from area to area and NHS England has focused its support on those areas that are struggling the most and account for the largest delays. We have talked about the taskforce to reduce delays in discharge, but the noble Baroness is also right that there is specific work going on to improve the handover process. We are looking to address the delays in every bit of the system that are causing delays up front to ambulance response times.