Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 13 March 2026.
Jon Trickett
Labour, Normanton and Hemsworth
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the average ambulance waiting times for (a) Category 1, (b) Category 2, (c) Category 3 and (d) Category 4 incidents for each region of the UK.
Karin Smyth
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
NHS England publishes monthly data on ambulance response times for England as part of the Ambulance Quality Indicators publication. The publication can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ambulance-quality-indicators/
The following table shows latest published performance data for ambulance response times in England, broken down by ambulance category:
Ambulance category | Performance standard | Latest published performance (January 2026) |
C1 average | 7 minutes | 8:08 |
C1 90th centile | 15 minutes | 14:27 |
C2 average | 18 minutes | 35:04 |
C2 90th centile | 40 minutes | 1:13:53 |
C3 90th centile | 2 hours | 5:02:09 |
C4 90th centile | 3 hours | 6:37:43 |
Ambulance response times for Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are published by their own health services respectively and can be found online. The response time categories and thresholds differ from those used in England, and as such direct comparisons cannot be made. The separate publications for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are available, respectively, at the following three links:
https://www.scottishambulance.com/our-board/board-papers/
https://jcc.nhs.wales/insighthub/asi/
https://www.health-ni.gov.uk/articles/emergency-care-and-ambulance-statistics
Yes2 people think so
No1 person thinks not
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
