Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s Category 2 response times.

The Government recognises that in recent years ambulance response times have not met the high standards patients should expect.

We are determined to turn things around. Our Urgent and Emergency Care Plan for 2025/26, backed by almost £450 million of capital investment, commits to reducing ambulance response times for Category 2 incidents to 30 minutes on average this year.  We are also tackling unacceptable ambulance handover delays by introducing a maximum 45-minute standard, supporting ambulances to be released more quickly and get back on the road to treat patients.

We have already seen improvements in ambulance response times for the East of England NHS Trust (EEAST). The latest NHS performance figures for EEAST show that Category 2 incidents were responded to in 37 minutes 27 seconds on average, over 14 minutes faster than the same period last year.