Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to reduce the average waiting time of people making emergency telephone calls to the East Midlands Ambulance Service.

The achievement of ambulance response time standards is a matter for the local National Health Service.

Following a rigorous and independent evaluation of the clinically-led Ambulance Response Programme, in July 2017 the Department agreed NHS England’s recommendations to implement an improved ambulance performance framework. These changes improve responses to patients and the efficiency and resiliency of the ambulance service in the face of rising demand. All mainland NHS ambulance trusts are now operating against this new framework, and the ambulance service on the Isle of Wight will do so from April 2018.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are working closely with the service to assist them to effectively perform against these new requirements, and NHS England will undertake a review of the framework in spring 2018.