Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help reduce (a) ambulance handover times and (b) ambulance service lost hours at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

NHS England has allocated an additional £150 million for the ambulance service in 2022/23, with £20 million to upgrade the ambulance fleet in each year to 2024/25, including in Norfolk.

The National Health Service will increase capacity by the equivalent of at least 7,000 general and acute beds to improve patient flow through hospital and reduce waiting times transferring ambulance patients to accident and emergency departments. This is in addition to a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund to support the National Discharge Taskforce to reduce delayed discharges to care settings, increase bed capacity and improve patient flow through hospital. NHS England is also providing targeted support to some hospitals facing the greatest delays in the handover of ambulance patients into the care of hospitals, to identify short and longer-term interventions to reduce delays.