Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 6 January 2017 to Question 58829, what information his Department and North West Ambulance hold on ambulance crews provided by (a) St John's Ambulance, (b) Jigsaw Medical Services and (c) other providers to North West Ambulance Services on each day from 23 December 2016 to 2 January 2017; what assessment his Department has made of the need to obtain ambulances from non-NHS providers over the Christmas and New Year period 2016; and what steps his Department plans to take for the provision of ambulance services between 22 December 2017 and 1 January 2018.

Pursuant to the answer of the 11 January 2017 to Question 58829, the Department does not hold the information requested.

The Department has made no such assessment. Operational issues such as the need to obtain additional resources to manage peaks in demand are the responsibility of individual ambulance services.

The provision of ambulance services will form part of the National Health Service planning arrangements for winter 2017-18 as part of year-round operational resilience planning to ensure the health and social care system is well prepared to cope with winter pressures.