Ambulance trust achieves fastest response times

New figures show an ambulance trust has achieved its fastest average response time for serious emergencies.

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) said crews across the region reached patients more quickly in March than at any other time in the past five years.

The data showed that last month the average response time for an EEAST crew to a category two emergency, such as chest pain or stroke symptoms, was 28 minutes and 15 seconds - the trust's best performance since May 2021.

Neill Moloney, the chief executive of EEAST, said the figures reflected the efforts of staff across the service.

EEAST, which works across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, said improvements had followed investment in new vehicles, which has reduced the amount of time ambulances were taken off the road for repairs.

The trust said it had also expanded its clinical assessment service in emergency operations centres and recruited additional clinicians to assess and treat less serious cases over the phone

About 18% of 999 calls that EEAST received were now dealt with without an ambulance being dispatched, which allowed crews to focus on the most urgent cases, the trust said.

Moloney added: "These latest figures are great news for patients in the East of England.

"They show our ambulances are responding at their fastest rate in almost five years."

The improvements follow NHS figures that showed productivity at EEAST rose by 9.8%, which was one of the highest increases for an ambulance trust in England.

The trust said the gain in productivity helped maintain faster response times through what it described as one of the busiest winters on record.

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