Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what guidance his Department provides to ambulance trusts to help ensure adequate (a) coverage and (b) response times.

On 30 January 2025, NHS England published the 2025/26 priorities and operational planning guidance. This set out the actions to be taken by the National Health Service in 2025/26 to improve ambulance response times. The planning guidance is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/2025-26-priorities-and-operational-planning-guidance/

Information on further actions to support improvements in urgent and emergency care services during 2025/26 will be published at the earliest opportunity.