Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will request an update from NHS Improvement and NHS England on the steps being taken across the health and care system to tackle ambulance handover delays at Shropshire’s acute hospitals.

NHS England and NHS Improvement are providing support to 35 challenged hospital sites to improve their patient handover processes, ensuring that these happen within an agreed timeframe and allowing ambulance crews to respond to calls.

West Midlands Ambulance Service has introduced a clinical validation team responsible for triaging lower urgency cases and where appropriate diverting patients to other services, increasing the ‘hear and treat’ rate in Shropshire. Hospital Ambulance Liaison Officers at Shropshire’s acute hospitals are improving the flow of patients arriving at accident and emergency (A&E) departments, by cohorting ambulance patients at both sites. A single ambulance crew is responsible for three to four patients, releasing additional crews to respond to calls in the community.

A new Same Day Emergency Centre has opened at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital, which receives ambulances directly, diverting patients from A&E as clinically appropriate and improving handover times. We have also invested £9.3 million to upgrade the emergency department, delivering additional cubicles, a new and improved majors department, a designated emergency zone for children and young people and a clinical decisions unit.