To ask the Minister of Health what steps he is taking reduce waiting times for admission to Emergency Departments for patients arriving by ambulance.

The Strategic Planning and Performance Group (Unscheduled Care Management Unit) is working with NIAS and the 5 HSC Trusts to develop improvement plans to reduce waiting times for admission to Emergency Departments for patients arriving by ambulance. These plans will be finalised and agreed in the coming weeks.

Plans include actions to reduce conveyance by ambulance to Emergency Departments where an alternative care pathway is appropriate; to take patients to the most appropriate service in the first instance; to provide more advice over the phone to patients where appropriate; to improve the handover process at Emergency Departments to reduce unnecessary waits; and a whole system approach to improve patient flow between hospital and community, including improving discharge pathways to create more bed capacity for those patients in Emergency Departments who require hospital admission.

These improvement plans will be agreed and implemented as part of the regional winter planning arrangements.

Performance management of unscheduled care will be used to measure and monitor the impact of these improvement plans.