How will you be working with the London Ambulance Service to tackle long wait times, in light of the latest figures which show paramedics are taking an average of 33 minutes to reach Londoners suffering a heart attack?

The London Ambulance Service (LAS), along with all Ambulance Trusts across England, are currently operating at their highest level of escalation. Since the start of the Summer LAS has been consistently receiving more than 6,000 999 calls every day, and on some busier days that has risen to more than 7,000 calls. Before the pandemic, a usually busy day would be around 5,500 calls.

I regularly meet with the Chair and the Chief Executive of the LAS to discuss waiting times and other issues which are affecting service delivery. They are doing a number of things to relieve pressures on the service during this busy time. These include having more specialist clinicians supporting 999 teams, helping to treat more people over the phone, guiding people to more appropriate care pathways and working closely with system partners, such as hospitals, to avoid handover delays.