Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the size of increase in demand of the ambulance service in the East of England in the last 12 months; and whether his Department plans to take steps to meet that demand.

NHS Improvement (NHSI) is responsible for overseeing National Health Service trusts. NHSI advises that East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s (EEAST’s) performance has seen a sustained improvement since March 2016. However, the Trust is still not meeting the national standards for category A (immediately life-threatening) calls. In August 2016, it responded to 68.9% of Red 1 calls and 62.3% of Red 2 calls within eight minutes, against a standard of 75%. For all category A calls, it responded to 90.8% within 19 minutes, against a standard of 95%.

NHSI advises that overall demand on the Trust’s services has increased by 4.6% over the last 12 months, although the higher acuity ‘Red’ demand has increased by approximately 15%. This substantial increase in high acuity demand represents thousands more calls needing a response against the eight-minute standard. In 2016/17, to the end of August 2016, the Trust had responded to 3,699 more high acuity patients (Red 1 and Red 2 calls) in eight minutes than in the same period in 2015/16.

NHSI advises that staff turnover at EEAST has been steadily reducing over the last eight months. Turnover of EEAST frontline staff for the period 1 August 2015 to 30 September 2016 was 7.12%. The Trust’s reference period for reporting staff turnover is 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2015, and within this period turnover was 8.31%. Based on the most recent national benchmarking data for June 2016, turnover for all staff at EEAST was 9.85%, fifth lowest of the 11 English ambulance trusts.