South Yorkshire ambulance response times coming down with plans for further improvement
Yorkshire Ambulance Service is getting to the most serious emergencies in around 7 and a half minutes
Ambulance response times in Sheffield and South Yorkshire have been cut over the past year and further improvement is planned, say 999 service leaders.
Prof Adam Layland, Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) associate chief operating officer for 999 operations, told a regional health scrutiny committee meeting held at Sheffield Town Hall yesterday (January 7) that the aim is to cut average response times to 18 minutes.
The average category 2 ambulance response time between April and November 2025 was 2025 is 26 minutes 33 seconds. This is down from the same period in 2024, when it was 31 minutes and 44 seconds.
Emergency ambulance response times are split into four categories, with category 1 being the most urgent, the South Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire joint health overview and scrutiny committee heard.
Average response times for the South Yorkshire area between April and November 2025 were:
Category 1 – 7 minutes, 36 seconds (against a national standard of 7 minutes);
Category 2 – 24 minutes, 45 seconds (standard of 30 minutes);
Category 3 – 1 hour, 14 minutes, 29 seconds (standard of 2 hours);
Category 4 – 1 hour, 37 minutes, 49 seconds (standard of 3 hours).
Prof Layland said that the South Yorkshire service operates from 10 stations but ambulances are constantly on the move, not parked at stations to wait for call-outs. Data is used to predict the areas where they are most likely to be needed.
This means patients can be moved more quickly to where they need to go for appropriate care, which may not be hospital A&E.
“The risk for patients is that we don’t know what’s going on with them if we haven’t got eyes on them, ” he said. “We leave a lot of people at home, depending on their need, our assessment and the treatment we give them.”
Prof Layland said that a key change is the new NHS W45 transfer of care protocol. This means that ambulance staff can leave patients at hospital after 45 minutes, even if the handover hasn’t been completed.
He said that handovers have now improved significantly, adding: “We’re really pleased and really proud of that. It’s an improvement journey we’ve collectively taken.”
Another improvement is a new Pathways triage system which gives a better way of assessing patients.
Prof Layland said he is also proud that YAS was ranked the third best ambulance service in the country for two quarters of last year. “It dmontrates our commitment to patients,” he said.
Sarah Brewer, regional NHS director of system integration for urgent and emergency care, told the committee that the success of W45 has been a real teatament to partnership working but there is always more to do.
She said one immediate aim is to cut the category 2 response time to 25 minutes.
Coun Mick Stowe from Barnsley asked if they were confident that imporvements could be delivered.
Ms Brewer said that planning for the next three years will be completed at the end of February. She said that delivering on 25 minutes is a “significant ambition” in that process and is achievable.
“We still need to work through the challenges to get to that point,” she added.
“The national ambition is 18 minutes in three years. It’s a continuous journey of improvement for our ambulance service and the rest of the NHS.”
Coun Eve Keenan asked about care for staff and whether numbers are high enough.
Prof Layland, who is a paramedic, said that there are extensive welfare and health support systems for ambulance staff and emergency service operators.
He said: “I’m really proud of what our staff do every single day in the most extreme circumstances you can imagine”, adding that some situations they deal with are “horrendous”.