To ask the Minister of Health whether there has been any initial assessment of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service's release to rescue scheme.

Ambulance handover delays have presented a significant challenge across the HSC system. During 2025/26, there were approximately 20,000 ambulance handover delays of more than two hours at Emergency Departments (ED), impacting both patient safety and NIAS's capacity to respond to emergency calls. In response to this, a regionally agreed two-hour handover threshold was implemented on 1 December 2025. While this delivered some improvement, delays at EDs remained at an unacceptable level.

The Release to Rescue protocol was subsequently introduced on 27 April 2026. Under this arrangement, where an ambulance crew has been unable to hand over a patient within two hours of arrival at an ED, clinical responsibility transfers to the HSC Trust, allowing the ambulance crew to return to service and respond to further emergency calls.

In advance of winter 2025/26, NIAS and HSC Trusts developed and implemented plans aimed at improving whole-system patient flow and reducing delays across urgent and emergency care pathways to support the introduction of the protocol.

Initial assessment indicates that Release to Rescue has had a positive impact. Across 2025/26, the average ambulance handover delay was 1 hour and 19 mins, with the longest recorded delay being 21 hours and 50 minutes. In July 2026, following the introduction of Release to Rescue, the average handover delay reduced to 48 minutes, and the longest recorded delay reduced to 13 hours and 35 minutes. The number of handovers delayed by more than two hours also reduced significantly. In March 2026, approximately 16% of ambulance arrivals at EDs across the region experienced delays of more than two hours; in July 2026 this had fallen to 6%.

These improvements have also had a positive impact on NIAS's ability to respond to emergency calls. Regional Category 1 response times improved from an average of 12 minutes in March 2026 to 11 minutes in July 2026. The most significant improvement has been seen in Category 2 response times, which reduced from an average of 76 minutes in March 2026 to 60 minutes in July 2026.

My Department continues to monitor the impact of Release to Rescue closely and works with NIAS and HSC Trusts to review and address any ambulance handover delays exceeding the two-hour threshold with the aim of continuing to improve handover times.

Overall, the introduction of Release to Rescue has had a positive impact for patients arriving at EDs by ambulance and improving ambulance response times for both Category 1 and Category 2 emergency calls.