Found: than they were and, of course, the 2007 document, Maternity Matters, closed a lot of the maternity hospital

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce A&E waiting times.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to improve accident and emergency waiting times. The plan is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/delivery-plan-for-recovering-urgent-and-emergency-care-services/

Backed by £1 billion of dedicated funding, the National Health Service delivered 5,000 additional core hospital beds in 2023/24, and will maintain this capacity expansion in 2024/25, to support patient flow through hospitals. Accident and emergency waiting times improved year-on-year in 2023/24 for the first time since 2009/10, not including the first year of the pandemic. The NHS Planning Guidance, published in March 2024, commits to further improvements in emergency care performance in 2024/25, with more information available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/operational-planning-and-contracting/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department are taking to reduce ambulance waiting times in (a) the West Midlands and (b) Birmingham, Erdington constituency.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to achieve our ambition of reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes across 2024/25, including in the West Midlands and Birmingham. Information on the delivery plan is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/B2034-delivery-plan-for-recovering-urgent-and-emergency-care-services.pdf

Ambulance trusts received £200 million of additional funding in 2023/24, to increase deployed hours and reduce response times. We will maintain this additional capacity this year, alongside the 5,000 additional permanent hospital beds delivered last year to improve patient flow through hospitals, and reduce ambulance capacity lost to ambulance patient handover delays.

Since we published our plan, there have been significant improvements in ambulance response times, including in the West Midlands. In 2023/24, average Category 2 ambulance response times in the West Midlands were over twelve minutes faster compared to the previous year, a reduction of 25%.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to help reduce waiting times in ambulance and emergency departments in Yorkshire.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to reduce ambulance and emergency department waiting times, including in Yorkshire.

Backed by £1 billion of dedicated funding, we delivered 5,000 additional core hospital beds in 2023/24 and will maintain this capacity expansion in 2024/25. Ambulance trusts received £200 million of additional funding in 2023/24 to increase deployed hours and reduce response times, which will also be maintained this year.

Since we published our plan there have been significant improvements in emergency care performance, including in Yorkshire. In 2023/24, average Category 2 ambulance response times in Yorkshire were over nine minutes faster compared to the previous year, a reduction of 23%, and performance against the four-hour standard for accident and emergency care improved in each integrated care board area in Yorkshire.

The NHS Planning Guidance, published in March, commits to further improvements in emergency care performance in 2024/25, with more information available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/operational-planning-and-contracting/

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to reduce ambulance response times.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our Delivery plan for recovering urgent and emergency care services sets out the range of measures being taken to achieve our ambition of reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes, across 2024/25. Further information on the delivery plan is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/B2034-delivery-plan-for-recovering-urgent-and-emergency-care-services.pdf

Ambulance trusts received £200 million of additional funding in 2023/24 to increase deployed hours and reduce response times. We will maintain the improved ambulance service capacity from this additional funding in 2024/25, alongside the additional 5,000 permanent hospital beds delivered last year to improve patient flow through accident and emergency, and reduce ambulance capacity lost due to handover delays.

There have been significant improvements in performance across the country, with average Category 2 ambulance response times in 2023/24 over 13 minutes faster compared to the previous year, a reduction of over 27%.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Markham on 12 March (HL3021), what is the distribution of each category of commissioned mental health service bed into each integrated care board area.

Answered by Lord Markham - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

NHS England does not hold this data at an integrated care board level.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average (a) daily cost is per adult elderly care hospital bed and (b) length of stay was in those beds in the latest period for which data is available in each acute trust within the Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated care system boundary.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information is not available in the format requested. NHS England published the general and acute length of bed stay data for 2022/23, with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2022-23

The length of stay in an adult intensive care unit hospital bed and an elderly care hospital bed is not collected centrally by the Department, or published by NHS England. NHS England publishes the median total time spent in accident and emergency, from arrival to admission, transfer, or discharge, and again with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/provisional-accident-and-emergency-quality-indicators-for-england/january-2024-by-provider

The information requested on average daily costs by acute trust and integrated care system is not collected centrally by the Department.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average (a) daily cost is for an adult intensive care unit hospital bed and (b) length of stay was in those beds in the latest period for which data is available in each acute trust within the Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated care system boundary.

Answered by Helen Whately - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)

The information is not available in the format requested. NHS England published the general and acute length of bed stay data for 2022/23, with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/hospital-admitted-patient-care-activity/2022-23

The length of stay in an adult intensive care unit hospital bed and an elderly care hospital bed is not collected centrally by the Department, or published by NHS England. NHS England publishes the median total time spent in accident and emergency, from arrival to admission, transfer, or discharge, and again with data available at trust level but not an integrated care system level, which is available at the following link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/provisional-accident-and-emergency-quality-indicators-for-england/january-2024-by-provider

The information requested on average daily costs by acute trust and integrated care system is not collected centrally by the Department.

Found: This meant empty housing stock could be used for outpatients, freeing up hospital beds.

Found: we can encourage more hybrid working, and give the message correlating the proportion of cases to hospital