Ambulance sector

Key points

• Ambulance services faced their busiest April on record for incidents.
  
  
• Performance continued to improve in April, with category 2 response times meeting the national recovery target for the second month running. Meanwhile, category 1 response times were the fastest recorded since May 2021, but did not meet the seven-minute standard.

Incidents

• There were 748,540 incidents in April 2025, the busiest April on record. Category 1 (75,550) and category 2 (376,650) incidents were broadly in line with last year.

Response times and handovers

The national ambulance response time targets are seven minutes for category 1 incidents and 18 minutes for category 2 incidents. As part of the plan to recover urgent and emergency care, NHS England adjusted the category 2 target to 30 minutes, on a temporary basis. 

• The average response time across England for category 1 incidents was seven minutes 43 seconds, which is the fastest time since May 2021. However, the seven-minute standard was not met. 
  
  
• For category 2 incidents, the average response time was 27 minutes and 34 seconds, marking the fastest time since August 2024 and meeting the 30-minute recovery target for the second month in a row.
  
  
• Two regions, the North East and London, met the seven-minute category 1 target this month.
  
  
• Eight ambulance services met the 30-minute target for category 2 response times in April. 
  
  
• There were 396,120 ambulance handovers in April 2025. Of these, 28% lasted over 30 minutes and 10% lasted over an hour, which is similar to last year. 

FIGURE 3
Ambulance response times for category 2 incidents