Ambulance services hit crucial target

Category 2 response times fell to 27m 25s in August, a fall of 6m from the previous month and the first time the 30m target imposed by NHS England’s urgent care recovery plan had been met since April 2023. These calls include suspected strokes and heart attacks.

The most serious patients – those in category 1, which includes cardiac and respiratory arrests – were reached in 8m 3s, the best performance since June 2021.

Both category 1 and category 2 responses were still outside the constitutional targets of 7m and 18m. However, the 30m interim target for category 2 calls has been a bellwether for how the NHS is delivering – last year ambulance trusts missed it with an average performance of more than 36m.

The position was helped by relatively low incident numbers in August, compared with recent months but also by a remarkable turnaround in performance by West Midlands Ambulance Services University Foundation Trust, which came close to hitting the 18m target at 18m 36s. In 2023-24 it averaged over 36m.

WMAS said that its category 2 performance was helped by a substantial fall in the hours lost to hospital handover delays – 16,562 in August compared to 24,337 in April. It is also dealing with around 20 per cent of calls on the phone by directing people to more appropriate services.

The Care Quality Commission issued a warning notice to WMAS earlier this year, ordering it to improve response times. The trust said at the time it needed an extra £20m from its commissioners to deliver what was being asked of it and highlighted the handover delays which were affecting performance.

Last week, HSJ reported that NHSE had accepted a target of 35m 57s for category 2 calls for London Ambulance Service Trust. In August, the trust was only just above 30m at 30m 18s and so far this financial year is exactly in line with the target.

However, the roughest months of the year are likely to lie ahead for all ambulance trusts and the chances of hitting 30m for the whole financial year will be very much determined by how well they can deliver during winter pressures.

Long A&E waits higher than last year

Urgent and emergency care has been improving since May and this trend continued into August.

Four hours performance for all patients improved from 74 per cent in May to 76.3 per cent in August, and from 59.7 per cent to 62.5 per cent for type 1 accident and emergency only.

In August, there were 111,057 12 hour A&E waits (8.6 per cent of attendances) – down from 146,203 long waits (10 per cent) in May.

However, long hour A&E waits remain at a higher level than this time last year. Between March and August this year, there have been 810,134 A&E waits over 12 hours – 9.6 per cent of attendances. This is up significantly on the same period last year, when there were 660,175 of these long waits (8.3 per cent).

Waiting list flatlines

The overall waiting list remained flat between June and July at 7.6 million. Long waiters, those waiting over 65 weeks, fell by around 7,000 to 51,000.

However, NHSE looks set to miss its target to “virtually eliminate” 65-week breaches by September, although the September data will not be available until November.