Ambulance sector

Incidents (September 2025)

• There were 761,430 incidents in September 2025, up by 5.6% since last year.
• In September, there were 74,480 category 1 incidents (life-threatening injuries and illnesses) relatively unchanged since last month but 4.1% lower compared to the same period last year.
• Category 2 incidents totalled 385,210, around the same as the month before but up by 3% compared to last year.

Response times and handovers (September 2025)

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 eight minutes and one second, the slowest performance in seven months (since February 2025) and missing the national standard of seven minutes.
• For category 2 incidents, the average response time was 30 minutes and 46 seconds – also the slowest since February 2025 and missing the 30-minute recovery target.
• In September 2025, there were a total of 396,780 ambulance handovers where the handover time is known. The mean handover time was 29 minutes 25 seconds, quicker than September 2024 (34min 10secs). 24.5% of handovers were over 30 minutes this month, an uptick from last month (21.6%).  

FIGURE 3
Ambulance response times for category 2 incidents