Data released by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives for August 2024 has revealed the following:
- There was an easing in demand for ambulance services compared with July 2024, both in terms of call volume, and overall incident volume
- Call answer time, and incident response times were faster than July 2024
- Category 2 mean response times dropped below the recovery standard of 30 minutes for the first time since May 2021
- Hospital handover delay volumes dropped
AACE Chair Jason Killens KAM said:
“For the first time in quite a while, our monthly data provides the opportunity to demonstrate that when call demand reduces slightly and hospital handover delays improve a little, the impact on ambulance performance and therefore waiting times for patients, is significant, with the potential for avoidable harm considerably reduced.
We’ve seen improvements in performance across all categories. In particular, Category 1 was quicker than the 90th centile target and Category 2 was quicker than the 30 minute recovery standard. In addition, the profile of our demand has relaxed, with decreases in Category 2 as a share of all incidents and corresponding increases in Category 3 and Category 4 as a share of incidents.
We know that much further progress is needed if we are to achieve the Category 2 performance (clinical) target of 18 minutes. We also know that hospital handover delays, while significantly lower than at the start of the year, remain contextually high. However, the August data shows that with close system working and a combined, sustained focus on reducing handover delays, performance for patients can be improved. As a result of this, harm caused by unnecessary waits can be reduced.”
The data is available at https://aace.org.uk/uk-ambulance-service/national-ambulance-data/
