To ask the Minister of Health to detail (i) the number of private ambulance providers that are contracted by the health and social care system; and (ii) the amount that private ambulance provision has cost, in each of the last three years.

Independent Ambulance Services (IAS) are procured by the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) through a regionally agreed Framework Agreement administered by the Business Services Organisation’s Procurement and Logistics Service (PaLs).

The Framework Agreement was implemented in November 2023 following a regional tendering process involving NIAS and all five Health and Social Care Trusts. IAS providers support scheduled care services and loweracuity unscheduled care through a nonemergency framework.

There are currently 15 IAS providers contracted under this framework.

The cost to NIAS of IAS provision (after recharges to other Trusts) in each of the last three years is shown below.

Table 1

Independent providers are primarily used for nonemergency patient transport, which helps protect NIAS urgent and emergency care resources. Work is ongoing with my Department to reduce dependence on this provision through the development of updated eligibility criteria for nonemergency transport.