The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) has welcomed today’s new Urgent and emergency care plan 2025/26 unequivocally, highlighting how its own vision for the future of the NHS ambulance sector aligns perfectly with the aspirations contained in the Government’s new plan and underlining the commitment of ambulance services to work with local health and social care partners to deliver its requirements and transform care for patients.
The plan outlines how NHS ambulance services will play a fundamental, central role in improving the urgent and emergency care system in England, by having greater access to better patient data, delivering more care to people closer to their homes through innovative new approaches, and being given greater access to existing and new ‘same day emergency care’ (SDEC) and urgent treatment centre (UTC) facilities.
This, combined with an expansion of the role and remit of paramedics within the community and greater clinical capability in emergency call centres, will help the ambulance sector to ensure people who do not need to be treated in hospitals are given the care they need in more appropriate places, relieving pressures on challenged emergency departments and improving the patient’s experience of their care.
AACE Managing Director Anna Parry said:
“The new urgent and emergency care plan reaffirms AACE’s vision for the future of NHS ambulance services. By extending and formalising a wider ambulance sector remit in urgent and emergency care, we will be better placed to help resolve some of the key system pressures, reduce the risks for patients and transform patient care while offering a more positive working environment for our people.
By underscoring the importance of a system-wide focus to achieve improvements in urgent and emergency care, this new plan acts as a genuine challenge to all health and social care leaders, encouraging them to plan and act with purpose to achieve the transformation that is needed.
Ambulance service leaders continue to proactively seek increased opportunities for greater collaboration with system partners while identifying new strategies and initiatives within their own ambulance trusts to achieve the transformation targets outlined in the plan.
“We are particularly heartened to see the plan’s emphasis on the reduction and improved management of hospital handover delays. Handover delays have the greatest detrimental impact on ambulance resources and create unnecessary delays and additional harm for thousands of patients each year. The elimination of corridor care and the focus on reducing 12-hour waits at emergency departments is also welcomed.
Finally, we wholeheartedly endorse and support the plan’s underlined recognition of the impact of the delivery of sub-optimal care on NHS staff, alongside the pivotal role both leadership and a strong system-level approach must play in the transformation of urgent and emergency care.
