Ambulance Pressures

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

The noble Lord might not have seen the Statement given by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health yesterday. A large portion of it focused on exactly the point that the noble Lord made. We need to do long-term things to relieve these pressures, but also more immediate things: specifically, to reduce handover times to no more than 30 minutes so that ambulances are not queuing any more and can get back on the road, so that people who have called an ambulance are seen faster. That means changing the assessment of the balance of risk to ensure that hospitals look at different ways of managing demand once people have been through the emergency care process. That may mean finding extra space within their estate or looking at how they manage their staffing to address exactly the point that the noble Lord made about the delay in handover times for ambulances needing to be addressed in the very short term while we also put in place all the other points. I know that he gave the example of Wolverhampton the other week to my noble friend, who I know took it away and relayed it back to the department to follow up on.

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, we have heard some really quite shocking stories of mental health patients ringing ambulances every week or so. They are not facing emergencies; they have not had accidents. Surely it is imperative that such patients, who have an ongoing condition, are looked at away from A&E. Can my noble friend be very diligent and kind and answer the opposition spokesman’s question, and maybe say a bit more about this acute problem?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is right that I did not address that point earlier, and I apologise for that. We are putting more funding into specialist mental health services to address some of the points that both the noble Baroness and my noble friend have made. On the number of psychiatric beds available, I will have to write to my noble friend.