East Midlands Ambulance Service receive 965 calls in first few hours of 2025
Most were answered in an average of 6 seconds
Last updated 2nd Jan 2025
East Midlands Ambulance Service received nearly a thousand emergency calls in the first seven hours of 2025.
Of the 965 emergency and urgent calls over 600 were received by 3:30am on January 1st.
On average calls were answered within an average of six seconds.
The figures have been revealed as we are reminded of treatment advice, with the NHS expected to be busy throughout the coming days, with weather warnings in place for most of England for snow this Saturday 4 January until Monday 6.
During this exceptionally busy period, we're asked allow emergency services to reach people who really need ambulances with life-saving equipment and clinicians on board, and to use NHS services appropriately.
“If you’re not sure where to go, you can find services near you via the NHS.uk website, or via 111 online or by calling 111.
“Our ambulance service is for people experiencing a medical emergency. This includes cardiac arrest, chest pain, where a patient isn’t conscious or breathing, catastrophic bleeding, or suspected stroke.”
EMAS Head of Emergency Operations Centre, Gary Lockley said:
“As anticipated, there was a significant increase in emergency calls received during the first few hours of 2025.
“Colleagues working in our Nottingham and Lincoln based emergency control centres did a tremendous job. Calls received from across the East Midlands were answered within an average of six seconds during the first seven hours of the day.
“999 calls were for a variety of reasons including cardiac arrest, people feeling acutely unwell due to a medical problem, and following road traffic collisions.
“There has been a noticeable increase in the number of calls received due to people being intoxicated having consumed excessive amounts of alcohol; in some of these cases, individuals had also fallen causing injury.”
EMAS Strategic Commander, Jim Richardson said:
“We had a busy start to 2025. Demand on our service and the emergency hospital departments across the East Midlands continues to be very high.
“As many welcomed in the new year, in addition to the tremendous work of our control centre colleagues, our emergency and urgent ambulance colleagues, non-emergency patient transport teams, and volunteer responders worked incredibly hard to respond to patient need – often in the most challenging and at times hostile environments. They have been supported by managers and on-call officers liaising with staff working in the busy hospitals, other healthcare facilities, and blue light services to ensure a collaborative response to the significant increase in demand."