University Hospital of North Tees: Ambulance Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the average ambulance handover time at the University Hospital of North Tees in each month since July 2024.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The Government recognises that ambulance response times are not meeting the high standards patients should expect. We are determined to address this challenge and have set out a clear path for improvement. On the 25 October 2025 we published the Medium-Term Planning Framework. Key ambulance ambitions include reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 25 minutes by the end of 2026/27.
Every region of England has received new emergency vehicles in the biggest upgrade of the ambulance fleet in recent years. Backed by £75 million, new vehicles are already helping to cut response times for patients. Modern, well-equipped, and reliable ambulances are a vital part of emergency care and allow staff to respond quickly and safely when patients need them most. To support ambulance services with increased decision making and capability, NHS England in 2025/26 published a new ambulance commissioning specification for integrated care boards that will drive consistency across England in the commissioning of ambulance services.
Information on handover delays at the University Hospital of North Tees is not available, as data on handover delays is not published at the hospital site level. Data on handover delays is reported for the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which includes management information reporting for the University Hospital of North Tees, from October 2023 to May 2026. It can be found at the following link:
Total ambulance crew hours lost is not directly reported, but the National Health Service does report on handover delays of 30 minutes and 60 minutes for each ambulance service, including the North East Ambulance Service. The data is published monthly at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
No direct assessment has been made of the impact of handover delays on ambulance response times in the Stockton West constituency. NHS publishes monthly reporting on ambulance response times. The latest mean average Category 2 response time, for serious but not immediately life-threatening conditions, such as strokes, chest pains, and burns, was 18 minutes and 30 seconds, for May 2026, for the North East Ambulance Service. The monthly average Category 2 response time, and monthly average handover delay for North East Ambulance Service, is published at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
The Department has made no assessment of the number of occasions there were in which no ambulance crews were available to respond immediately to emergency calls in the Stockton West constituency due to handover delays. Ambulance response times are reported under four categories depending on the seriousness of the call. Data on ambulance response times for Category 1, life threatening incidents, and Category 2, serious but not life-threatening incidents, are published monthly at an ambulance trust level by the NHS, and can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
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