Ambulance Services: South Holland and the Deepings
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps have been taken to reduce ambulance waiting times in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.
Answered by Karin Smyth
Emergency ambulance provision for South Holland and The Deepings and Lincolnshire is delivered by the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS).
On 25 October 2025, we published the Medium-Term Planning Framework. It marks the first steps towards delivering the transformation set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, setting out clear priorities to improve urgent and emergency care performance. Key ambulance ambitions include reducing average Category 2 ambulance response times to 25 minutes by the end of 2026/27.
In 2025/26, national investment was £10.7 million in EMAS, and this delivered a regional improvement of four minutes and 21 seconds on the Category 2 mean response time and was made recurrent for 2026/27, as well as an additional £11.9 million for further growth in activity. EMAS has committed to use this funding to increase the number of Dual Crewed Ambulances that are available to respond to patients. Investment has also been utilised to increase the level of Hear and Treat Activity by increasing the number of clinicians working within the Emergency Operations Centre, supporting patients to be treated in the community and avoiding ambulance conveyance to hospital.
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