Ambulance Services: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the average waiting time is for (a) ambulances held in queues and (b) people waiting at home for an ambulance.
Answered by Karin Smyth
The national average ambulance handover time was 43 minutes and 32 seconds in December 2024. The following table shows the national ambulance response time, including for people who have called for an ambulance from their home, for Category 1, 2, 3, and 4 incidents, in hours, minutes and seconds:
Category of incident | December 2024 national average | NHS Constitution standard |
Category 1 average response time | 00:08:40 | 00:07:00 |
Category 1 90th centile response time | 00:15:25 | 00:15:00 |
Category 2 average response time | 00:47:26 | 00:18:00 |
Category 2 90th centile response time | 01:41:40 | 00:40:00 |
Category 3 90th centile response time | 07:21:03 | 02:00:00 |
Category 4 90th centile response time | 08:15:44 | 03:00:00 |
Source: NHS England Ambulance Quality Indicators, which is available at the following link: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
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