Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, there are well-established and well-practised co-ordination and escalation procedures in place to manage cross-system and cross-government impacts at all levels. These are activated when appropriate and on the basis of subsidiarity. UKHSA public health advice is being regularly updated and communicated for everyone to stay safe in the heat. As noble Lords will know, today the UKHSA and the Met Office have announced that all nine English regions will be under a level 3 heat alert from Saturday 16 to Tuesday 19 July. The heat alert system runs during the summer. Depending on the level of alert, a response will be triggered to communicate the risk to the NHS, government and public health systems. Advice and information for the public and health and social care professionals, particularly those working with at-risk groups, are provided, including both general preparation for hot weather and more specific advice when a severe heatwave has been forecast.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, delayed discharges account for more than 2.5 million lost bed days in NHS hospitals. With the greatest respect, organisational reorganisation will not deal with the gross underfunding of social care that means ambulances spend hours outside A&E. What are the Government going to do now to deal with the crisis in social care funding, which causes ambulances to wait outside hospitals?

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will know very well, we have put increased funding into our social care system, but we also have in place a national discharge task force to drive further progress and support regional and local system arrangements. That has membership from local government, the NHS and national government. Local health and social care partners are already standing up the use of additional action to support discharge and improve patient flow. The task force is looking at a number of interventions—for example, identifying patients needing complex discharge support early and ensuring multidisciplinary engagement in the early discharge plan. There is more support going into social care, but there is also a specific piece of work with the national discharge task force.