Ambulance sector

Key points

• Ambulance services experienced their busiest May since 2021, with incident numbers increasing from the previous month.
  
  
• Category 2 response times met the national recovery target for the third consecutive month. However, category 1 response times deteriorated slightly compared to April and did not meet the seven-minute standard.
  
  
• Ambulance handover times improved compared to the previous month, with the mean handover time nearly three minutes faster. 

Incidents

• There were 761,320 incidents in May 2025, increasing since last month and the busiest May since 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 51 seconds, eight seconds slower than the month before and missing the standard. 
  
  
• For category 2 incidents, the average response time was 27 minutes and 54 seconds, meeting the 30-minute recovery target for the third month in a row.
  
  
• Two regions, the North East and London, met the seven-minute category 1 target this month.
  
  
• Seven ambulance services met the 30-minute target for category 2 response times in May.
  
  
• There were a total of 406,430 ambulance handovers in May 2025. The mean handover time was 29 minutes 30 seconds, nearly three minutes faster than April. 25.6% of handovers were over 30 minutes this month, falling for the fifth consecutive month from the peak of 36.7% in December 2024.

Figure 3
Ambulance response times for category 2 incidents