Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions has he had with the ambulance service on reducing ambulance waiting times in winter 2023-4.

We have already published our ‘Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency services’, which set out the priorities and actions to be taken to support and improve performance this year, including during the winter period. This includes the ambition to improve accident and emergency wait times to 76% of patients being admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours by March 2024, and to reduce Category 2 response times to 30 minutes on average this year. The plan is backed by £1 billion of dedicated funding to support additional National Health Service capacity. Ministers regularly discuss the delivery of these ambitions with NHS England, and the priorities for the winter period.