Urgent and Emergency Care

Rushanara Ali Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

We know that 117,000 people have died waiting for treatment on the NHS waiting list, and what we are hearing now is that 500 people a week are dying waiting for ambulances. Can the Secretary of State give us a date by which he can guarantee that people will not lose their lives waiting for an ambulance to come and get them and care for them?

[Steve Barclay]

What I can guarantee is that, through the taskforce, we are prioritising how we get ambulances back on the road and how we speed things up to reduce handover delays. We are looking in particular at the 10 trusts in which the issue is most acute, because there is an unmet need in the community if the ambulance is not there.

On the hon. Member’s point about the backlogs with electives, we announced over the summer, as part of the work that we have been doing, a whole series of surgical hubs and community diagnostic centres. We are working with the Getting It Right First Time team, under Professor Sir Tim Briggs, on different patient pathways. A whole range of work is being done to reduce waiting times, which is why we have already cleared the longest waits—the two-year waits—and are now turning to the 18-month waits.