Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve average ambulance response times for Category (a) 1 and (b) 2 incidents.

Our Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) Delivery Plan for 2025/26 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, ensuring ambulances are released more quickly and get back on the road to treat patients.

Backed by almost £450 million, the UEC Delivery Plan will deliver around 40 new Same Day Emergency Care and Urgent Treatment Centres – which treat and discharge patients in the same day, avoiding unnecessary admissions to hospital and in turn reducing handover delays. This is alongside upgrading hundreds of ambulances as part of the investment to improve the speed and quality of care for those most in need.

We have already seen improvements in response times across the country. The latest national figures show that Category 1 incidents were responded to in an average of 7 minutes 56 seconds, and Category 2 incidents in 28 minutes 40 seconds. This is faster than 8 minutes 15 seconds and 33 minutes 24 seconds respectively in July 2024.