Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 21 November 2024.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to section 4.2 of NHS key statistics: England, HC 07281, published on 25 October 2024, (a) what assessment he has made of the causes of the increase in life threatening ambulance calls since Spring 2021 and (b) what percentage of the calls each month were cardiac related.
The rise in category 1 incidents reflects an increase in the proportion of patients’ ambulance services that have been determined to require an immediate face-to-face response. This may reflect a long-term trend of rising pressures on the health services from an increasing aging population, and complexity that comes with more patients with multiple comorbidities. Information on increases in ambulance service demand is published by NHS England. The total number of cardiac arrests that ambulance services responded to is published by month, however this information does not include other cardiac incidents, for example heart attack or angina, and the information is not disaggregated by incident category. The following table shows the total number of cardiac arrests each month from March 2021 to June 2024:
Month | Total cardiac arrests |
March 2021 | 7,473 |
April 2021 | 6,982 |
May 2021 | 7,085 |
June 2021 | 6,944 |
July 2021 | 7,592 |
August 2021 | 7,135 |
September 2021 | 7,442 |
October 2021 | 8,307 |
November 2021 | 8,483 |
December 2021 | 9,227 |
January 2021 | 8,936 |
February 2021 | 7,466 |
March 2021 | 8,216 |
April 2022 | 8,043 |
May 2022 | 7,781 |
June 2022 | 7,407 |
July 2022 | 7,959 |
August 2022 | 7,408 |
September 2022 | 7,349 |
October 2022 | 8,118 |
November 2022 | 8,440 |
December 2022 | 11,988 |
January 2022 | 9,832 |
February 2022 | 7,682 |
March 2022 | 8,599 |
April 2023 | 8,049 |
May 2023 | 7,298 |
June 2023 | 6,921 |
July 2023 | 6,611 |
August 2023 | 6,753 |
September 2023 | 6,668 |
October 2023 | 7,941 |
November 2023 | 8,259 |
December 2023 | 9,554 |
January 2024 | 9,471 |
February 2024 | 8,045 |
March 2024 | 8,309 |
May 2024 | 7,544 |
June 2024 | 7,344 |
Source: The data is published by NHS England, and is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
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