Vital Signs: A&E & ambulance response

Briefing · Parliament

MPs and peers debate corridor care, ambulance demand records and A&E waiting times as Health Bill passes through committee

1. 01The Health Bill committee was the main legislative battleground. Helen Morgan (Liberal Democrat, North Shropshire) tabled new clause 56 to give patients a legal right to be admitted to an A&E department within 12 hours of a decision to admit, and to require the Secretary of State to introduce a supporting scheme, arguing that A&E targets were mere pledges rather than enforceable rights. Karin Smyth (Labour, Bristol South) responded that the Government was already investing more than £450 million in urgent and emergency care and was committed to ending corridor care, while Dr Caroline Johnson (Conservative, Sleaford and North Hykeham) questioned the drafting and raised concerns about patient safety and dignity in corridors.
2. 02A dedicated Commons debate on NHS corridor care on 8 July 2026 drew extensive contributions. Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Labour, Tooting), a practising A&E doctor, opened the debate and described mentally unwell patients waiting beside resus areas and bereaved families in the same spaces. Yasmin Qureshi (Labour, Bolton South and Walkden) cited Royal College of Emergency Medicine estimates that over 15,800 excess deaths were associated with long A&E waits in 2025, while Dr Peter Prinsley (Labour, Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) attributed the crisis in part to the fall in hospital beds from around 300,000 in the 1980s to approximately 140,000 more recently.
3. 03Multiple members and debates highlighted the impact of the 2026 summer heatwaves on ambulance services and A&E. Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat) told the Lords on 29 June that six NHS trusts had declared critical incidents and the London Ambulance Service had recorded its busiest day in its entire history, with demand exceeding even the peak of the Covid pandemic. Dr Ellie Chowns (Green, North Herefordshire) and Adrian Ramsay (Green, Waveney Valley) separately made the same point in Commons debates, with Ramsay adding that hospitals had declared critical incidents and elective operations been postponed during the June heatwave.
4. 04A Westminster Hall debate on sudden cardiac death, secured by Greg Smith (Conservative, Mid Buckinghamshire), raised specific concerns about the NHS Pathways 999 call-handling system after an inquest into the death of Adam, a young constituent. Smith quoted expert evidence that NHS Pathways as configured could not always properly support members of the public to identify agonal breathing or out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Minister James Frith (Labour, Bury North) acknowledged ongoing performance monitoring and confirmed that CPR training would be extended to all NHS staff, including those in A&E, from April 2027.
5. 05Community hospitals, dental access and mental health crisis provision were cited across several debates as upstream factors driving A&E pressure. Dr Roz Savage (Liberal Democrat, South Cotswolds) said that in the south-west, ambulance handovers at acute hospitals took more than 30 minutes in more than half of cases in January 2025, nearly 30 per cent above the England average. Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat, Epsom and Ewell) noted that tooth decay is now the most common reason for hospital admission in children aged six to ten, and Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat, Honiton and Sidmouth) said that in 2023-24 one in every 460 people in the south-west attended A&E for a dental problem, almost twice the London rate.