Ambulance Queues: Health Outcomes

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

My Lords, NHS workers on the front line have been warning for months and months that the service is under strain due to a combination of waning workforce, Covid, respiratory infections, a backlog of patients and a build-up of health problems over lockdowns. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has been calling for months for a response from Ministers to provide short-term and long-term solutions. We called on the Health Secretary last summer for urgent additional support to be put in place. Why are we still waiting for that leadership and necessary support to materialise?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure the noble Baroness will acknowledge that a number of people have been calling for ways to address this. The Government announced the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery 10 Point Action Plan last year, which includes supporting 999 and 111 services, looking at primary care and community health services, greater use of urgent treatment centres, increased support for children and young people, better communications and call handling, improving inflow and hospital discharge, looking at mental health needs and a number of other issues. In each of those 10 points we have drilled down on working with trusts and the ambulance service to make sure we can address the issues that are currently being raised.