Ambulance Services and National Heatwave Emergency

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

We are working urgently on this issue—as, I am sure, are the health services in Wales and Scotland, which are facing the same problems. We are all working hard to address them. As I have said, we have procured a contract with a value of £30 million for an auxiliary ambulance service to increase capacity, should we need it. I will be meeting all ambulance trusts in the coming days to make sure we have the resilience we need, not just to catch up with some of the pressures that existed before covid or to deal with the pressures that those trusts are facing now, but to future-proof them for the coming winter months.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Joyce, a 96-year-old survivor of the Coventry blitz, sadly fell in her care home back in April, and lay in agony screaming for 10 hours. At the time of the 999 call, there were 63 people awaiting ambulances, and on that day, over 1,100 hours were lost due to hospital handover delays. Clearly, a major factor in those delays is the handover capacity in our A&E services and in wards. The Government have had 12 years to sort out the issue of social care, so does the Minister support the calls from various leadership candidates to make tax cuts and remove the national insurance increase that was supposed to support social care?