Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

This affects my constituents too, as I am also a London MP and therefore take a very close interest in it. I think it is unfair to say that the trust is in chaos. It is taking urgent steps to address the situation, including recruiting extra paramedics, increasing overtime, and reducing the number of multiple vehicles attending each call. We are working with Health Education England to increase the pool of paramedics, with 240 being trained in 2014, going up to 700 in 2018. Urgent measures are being taken to address the problem right now. I have had those assurances directly from managers in the trust whom I met very recently.

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is a fact that ambulances are taking longer to reach patients in the most critical condition. Today we are publishing figures regarding the increasing use of private ambulances. Nobody expects a private company to respond when they dial 999. Private ambulance usage has grown by 82% in the past two years nationally and by over 1,000% in London over the same period. Will the Secretary of State now admit that he sees no limit to the role of private companies in the national health service?

[Jane Ellison]

That is complete nonsense. The previous Government occasionally deployed private ambulances, which trusts use occasionally when they need to do so. This is another part of Labour’s myth of creeping privatisation, which is not true—it is absolute nonsense. It is important, however, in the interests of patient safety and as a short-term measure, that if that is what it takes, trusts must do it, as happened under the previous Government, because patient safety comes first.