East of England ambulance response time improving says EEAST

East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST) revealed that their response times for life-threatening cases and category two incidents have improved but still fall short of the targeted time.

While the response times have improved, the trust has said more needs to be done to reduce handover delays at hospitals.

Ambulances queue up at Ipswich Hospital's A&E department in 2024 (Image: Newsquest)

An EEAST spokesperson said: “Like ambulance services nationally, we have faced significant pressure over the past year.

“Despite this, we have delivered year-on–year improvements in response times across the East of England."

The service reported that in 2025 the average response time for life-threatening category one calls improved by 34 seconds, falling to 8 minutes 40 seconds.

READ MORE: More:Nearly 50 norovirus cases confirmed by ESNEFT in the wake of critical incident

Category two response times, for emergencies including chest pain and suspected stroke, improved by over nine minutes, reducing to 35 minutes 35 seconds. 

However, the trust's targets aim for category one responses to take an average of seven minutes and category two to take 18 minutes.

“We know more needs to be done and in the coming year we will be delivering more care in the community and working with hospitals to further reduce handover delays." said EEAST.

“These actions will help us reach patients with urgent needs even faster.”

Mike Meers, Managing Director for ESNEFT stated handover times have improved in the first two weeks of January (Image: ESNEFT)

READ MORE: Ambulance queues at Ipswich Hospital's new A&E block

Mike Meers, Managing Director at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We are committed to working in partnership with our ambulance service colleagues and wider system partners to ensure safe, timely handovers for patients.

“While we saw improvements in December, ambulance handover times did increase in the first two weeks of January. We have since seen performance improve, following the Trust’s response to its critical incident. Continuing this progress is an absolute priority for us."