Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to reduce ambulance waiting times in (a) London and (b) England.

A number of activities are being taken to address waiting times for the ambulance service in London, including steps to increase the efficiency of operational systems and processes such as handovers at accident and emergency departments and measures to reduce demand for ambulance services in London. From April 2015/16 to present, commissioners have provided additional investment totalling £62.9 million to London Ambulance Service to increase the number of frontline staff, support vehicle maintenance and a number of performance improvement projects.

NHS England’s Urgent and Emergency Care Review will transform ambulance services from transport services into mobile treatment centres with greater use of “hear & treat” (closing calls over the phone with advice) and “see & treat” (treating patients on scene without onward conveyance), greater integration with the rest of the health system and a focus on preventing some of the demand on emergency departments. The Ambulance Response Programme is also exploring whether changes to the way that the ambulance service responds to calls could help improve patient outcomes, and help services better manage demand. We expect NHS England will make recommendations in spring 2017.