NHS Activity Tracker: July 2025
Ambulance sector
7m, 55s
category 1 average response time in June
759,640
ambulance incidents recorded in June
29m, 37s
category 2 average response time in June
Key points
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There were the second highest number of incidents for June on record, surpassed only by 2021.
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Category 2 response times met the national recovery target for the fourth consecutive month. However, the average category 1 response time was slower than in the previous three months.
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Ambulance handover times continued to improve and were the fastest since August 2024.
Incidents
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There were 759,640 incidents in June 2025, similar to last month but up by 4% compared to last year and higher than every June except 2021.
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 and 55 seconds, four seconds slower than the month before and missing the national standard of seven minutes.
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For category 2 incidents, the average response time was 29 minutes and 37 seconds. Despite being one minute and 43 seconds slower this month, the 30-minute recovery target was met for the fourth month in a row.
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No ambulance services met the seven-minute category 1 target this month.
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Six ambulance services met the 30-minute target for category 2 response times in June.
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There were a total of 396,470 ambulance handovers in June 2025. The mean handover time was 28 minutes 51 seconds, the fastest since August 2024. 24.5% of handovers were over 30 minutes this month, falling for the sixth consecutive month from the peak of 36.7% in December 2024.
Figure 3
Ambulance response times for category 2 incidents
