Ambulances taking twice as long as they should in East of England, NHS data shows
Last month, the ambulance service trust was also ranked second-worst in the country
Last updated 22nd Jan 2026
Ambulances are taking more than twice as long as they should to respond to strokes in the East of England, latest NHS figures show.
The NHS' target for responding to conditions like strokes, epilepsy and burns (known as 'Category 2' incidents) is that ambulances should arrive in 18 minutes on average.
However, the average for ambulances in the East of England to respond to this incidents is more than 36 minutes.
10% of responses take longer than one and a quarter hours.
This is despite the fact that East of England Ambulance Service picks up the phone to most emergency calls in one minute.
The only region worse than the East of England in terms of responding to Category 2 incidents is the East Midlands, where ambulances arrive at these incidents in 44 minutes on average.
Last month, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which operates in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, was ranked the second-worst in the country.
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