Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent (a) steps his Department has taken and (b) research his Department has commissioned to understand the (i) causes and (ii) potential solutions of the pressures being experienced by NHS Ambulance Trusts; and how much funding was allocated to that work.

The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health including ambulance services. While the NIHR do not usually ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics, research proposals in all areas compete for the funding available. Since April 2017, there have been 15 research projects on ambulance services with combined funding of £12,513,665.

NHS England has allocated an additional £150 million for ambulance service pressures in 2022/23, supporting improvements to response times through additional call handler recruitment, retention and other funding requirements. This is further to a £20 million investment to upgrade the ambulance fleet, which aims to increase ambulance capacity by reducing the age profile of the fleet, increasing productivity and the size of the fleet while decreasing emissions.

Additionally, St John Ambulance has been contracted to deliver auxiliary ambulance services, providing national surge capacity of at least 5,000 hours per month as needed to support the ambulance response during periods of increased pressure, allowing NHS ambulance crews to focus on responding to emergency calls. Ambulance trusts receive continuous central monitoring and support from the NHS England’s National Ambulance Coordination Centre.