Paramedic Services

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to prevent avoidable deaths caused by delays to the arrival of paramedic services.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

NHS Improvement has allocated £150 million of additional funding to ambulance services to help address pressures, alongside reducing ambulance handover delays. Even though the pandemic placed significant pressure on response times, there have been improvements in all response time categories in both April and May, with average response times to category 2 emergency calls—such as strokes and heart attacks—reduced by about 11 minutes and 24 seconds in May alone. Work continues with the service to restore performance.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, it is difficult to thank the Minister for the Answer because it is a totally unsatisfactory one. I have been raising this question for about the last six months. The reality is that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, told me when her son had a stroke and 999 was called, it took nearly six hours. He suffered serious consequences as a result of that. People are dying as we sit in this Chamber, literally thousands of them. Why? Because paramedics are waiting with trolleys in hospitals for a bed. There is a simple solution to this problem, which I have been suggesting to the Minister. I have also given him a place—Wolverhampton—where they have solved this problem. Yet, still we do not seem to treat this as a matter of urgency. It is a national disgrace and I want an assurance from the Minister that real action is to be taken—and that does not mean an 11-minute improvement.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I begin by thanking the noble Lord for his engagement with me and the department on this issue. When the noble Lord has sent me details or suggestions, I have passed them to the relevant officials within the department. I hope I can assure that noble Lord that I have done that. As the noble Lord will know, within departments we have particular portfolios and I have to hand it on to the person responsible. In terms of the recovery plan, the NHS has published a 10-point action plan for urgent and emergency care. I will not go through the whole action plan, but it includes dealing with paramedics, recruitment and retention, and more space in A&E departments. At the same time, can requests be handled by telephone by clinicians and patients diverted to a more appropriate resource? All these have been looked at. I understand that the noble Lord thinks it is unsatisfactory, but we have been hit by the pandemic, we are trying to recover and there is a plan.