Daisy Cooper: Ambulances are on high alert across England

A month ago Daisy Cooper submitted a question to the Government, and she has only just received a reply. Her question was:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many ambulance trusts have moved into REAP Level 4 in the last six weeks; and how many in total are at REAP Level 4 as at 22 October 2021.

REAP = Resource Escalation Action Plan. Level 4 is the highest level and indicates Extreme Pressure.

The response did arrive after this prompt:

In the last six weeks, all 11 English ambulance trusts have been at or moved to REAP Level 4. On 22 October 2021, all 11 ambulance trusts were at REAP Level 4.

The Government has not made a statement to Parliament about this very worrying situation. So the Liberal Democrats are calling for an emergency plan to support ambulance services this winter. It recommends:

• Bringing in military personnel across all ten trusts in England to help address staff shortages
• Reversing recent and planned closures of ambulance stations
• Increasing beds and staffing capacity at A&Es to reduce queues of ambulances outside hospitals

Daisy says:

This is shameful. Forget the statistics, we're talking about loved ones waiting for ambulances that arrive too late or get stuck in queues at hospitals with devastating results.