Terror attack funding doesn’t meet trusts’ ask

NHS England has outlined spending worth about £34m to make ambulance services better able to respond to terror attacks – but the settlement appears to fall well short of ambulance trusts’ asks.

Ambulance leaders have been pressing NHSE for several years to confirm funding for recommendations of the Manchester Arena bombing, which took place nearly a decade ago. Last month HSJ revealed one chief executive’s warnings that services were not “sufficiently trained, equipped, or resourced” to respond to a terrorist attack.

Now, in a 6 November letter to the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, NHSE chief operating officer Sarah-Jane Marsh said it would fund three additional hazardous area response teams (HART) and three special operations response teams (SORT), together with training and backfill for staff.

HART teams enter “hot zones” or “inner cordons” of incidents, including terrorist attacks, to provide care to improve survival rates. Trusts already have to be able to place six HART staff on scene at defined “strategic sites of interest” within 45 minutes.

NHSE estimates each HART team will cost around £7m a year, plus £3m capital, and each SORT team around £6.5m a year, although it said detailed costing would follow, and costs might differ outside London. Two SORT teams would start in 2027/28, with a third potentially following in 2028/29, according to the letter, which has been shared with HSJ.

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Source: HSJ, 10 November 2026