Trusts expect to miss emergency care target

Four of England’s 10 ambulance trusts are expecting to miss the headline response time target for 2026-27, according to their plans for the year.

Details of trusts’ plans as agreed with their commissioners, collected by HSJ, suggest Category 2 performance could be around 26 minutes 30 seconds nationally, rather than the 25m recovery target.

Recovering response times for Category 2 incidents – which include suspected heart attacks and strokes – has been a key ask from government and NHS England for several years, and has clear targets in the medium-term planning framework.

However, ambulance trusts typically agree their target times each year with integrated care board commissioners and NHSE, based on funding on offer and the expected impact of hospital handover delays, which take crews out of action. They then plan for on-road hours and the staffing needed.

An NHSE spokesperson said: “We have started the year well on track to hit ambitious national targets for category two calls, and we are supporting every ambulance trust to improve their response times and, in some cases, exceed the national target.”

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Source: HSJ, 13 May 2026