PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
(5 February 2026)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of hospital handover delays on ambulance response times in (a) Shropshire and (b) the West Midlands.

Asked by:
Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat)

No such assessment has been made. Ambulance handover and response times for ambulance trusts, including for the West Midlands Ambulance Service, are published monthly by NHS England. This information can be accessed via the Ambulance Quality Indications dataset at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/ambulance-quality-indicators-data-2025-26/

Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26 sets out clear actions to deliver improvements this winter and make services better every day, including reducing ambulance handovers to a maximum of 45 minutes, helping get more ambulances back on the road for patients, and reducing Category 2 ambulance response times to 30 minutes on average. NHS England continues to monitor average hospital handover times, sharing data with regions to support focussed discussions and identify improvement actions with those trusts not achieving handovers in 45 minutes.

The 2025 Medium‑Term Planning Framework commits to faster ambulance responses, aiming for 20‑minute Category 2 times by 2026/27 and 18 minutes by 2028/29.

Answered by:
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