Emergency ambulance calls and responses to red calls, October 2015 to June 2025

Standard shorthand is used in this table: [b] = break in time series.

Data values	Data description	Date	Local health board
3,728	Red calls	June 2022	Wales
5,411	Red calls	December 2023	Wales
2,847	Red calls	December 2020	Wales
3,599	Red calls	May 2022	Wales
4,003	Red calls	March 2023	Wales
4,669	Red calls	November 2023	Wales
2,620	Red calls	March 2020	Wales
2,557	Red calls	November 2020	Wales
3,905	Red calls	September 2021	Wales
3,609	Red calls	April 2022	Wales
4,602	Red calls	November 2022	Wales
3,691	Red calls	February 2023	Wales
3,926	Red calls	August 2023	Wales
4,918	Red calls	October 2023	Wales
2,233	Red calls	November 2018	Wales
2,191	Red calls	February 2020	Wales
1,800	Red calls	June 2020	Wales
2,440	Red calls	October 2020	Wales
2,462	Red calls	March 2021	Wales
3,375	Red calls	August 2021	Wales
3,848	Red calls	November 2021	Wales
3,583	Red calls	March 2022	Wales
3,495	Red calls	August 2022	Wales
4,545	Red calls	October 2022	Wales
5,949	Red calls	December 2022	Wales
4,078	Red calls	January 2023	Wales
4,076	Red calls	May 2023	Wales
4,029	Red calls	July 2023	Wales
2,543	Red calls	October 2019	Wales
4,432	Red calls	September 2023	Wales
1,851	Red calls	March 2017	Wales
1,800	Red calls	November 2017	Wales
2,185	Red calls	May 2019	Wales
2,537	Red calls	January 2020	Wales
1,892	Red calls	April 2020	Wales
1,836	Red calls	May 2020	Wales
2,044	Red calls	October 2018	Wales
2,435	Red calls	September 2020	Wales
2,457	Red calls	January 2021	Wales
2,006	Red calls	February 2021	Wales
3,063	Red calls	May 2021	Wales
3,583	Red calls	July 2021	Wales
1,842	Red calls	February 2019	Wales
4,107	Red calls	October 2021	Wales
3,381	Red calls	January 2022	Wales
2,932	Red calls	February 2022	Wales
2,914	Red calls	November 2019	Wales
4,130	Red calls	July 2022	Wales
2,160	Red calls	June 2019	Wales
3,553	Red calls	September 2022	Wales
2,293	Red calls	August 2019	Wales
1,696	Red calls	September 2017	Wales
2,315	Red calls	July 2019	Wales
2,010	Red calls	December 2016	Wales
3,799	Red calls	April 2023	Wales
1,692	Red calls	May 2016	Wales
2,325	Red calls	September 2019	Wales
4,010	Red calls	June 2023	Wales
1,825	Red calls	October 2017	Wales
1,657	Red calls	February 2017	Wales
2,044	Red calls	June 2018	Wales
1,749	Red calls	May 2017	Wales
1,877	Red calls	October 2015	Wales
1,516	Red calls	June 2016	Wales
1,801	Red calls	February 2016	Wales
1,779	Red calls	June 2017	Wales
1,927 [b]	Red calls	December 2015	Wales
2,052	Red calls	July 2018	Wales
1,836	Red calls	July 2017	Wales
3,171	Red calls	December 2019	Wales
1,731	Red calls	November 2015	Wales
1,727	Red calls	July 2016	Wales
1,986	Red calls	August 2018	Wales
2,207	Red calls	January 2018	Wales
1,931	Red calls	September 2018	Wales
2,282	Red calls	December 2017	Wales
2,065	Red calls	July 2020	Wales
2,563	Red calls	August 2020	Wales
1,681	Red calls	November 2016	Wales
1,600	Red calls	August 2016	Wales
1,910	Red calls	March 2016	Wales
1,778	Red calls	April 2017	Wales
2,045	Red calls	January 2019	Wales
2,652	Red calls	April 2021	Wales
3,285	Red calls	June 2021	Wales
2,431	Red calls	December 2018	Wales
1,747	Red calls	August 2017	Wales
1,492	Red calls	September 2016	Wales
2,227	Red calls	March 2018	Wales
1,983	Red calls	April 2019	Wales
3,930	Red calls	December 2021	Wales
1,952	Red calls	February 2018	Wales
1,980	Red calls	January 2017	Wales
2,078	Red calls	March 2019	Wales
1,946	Red calls	May 2018	Wales
1,696	Red calls	October 2016	Wales
1,609	Red calls	April 2016	Wales
1,806	Red calls	April 2018	Wales
1,868	Red calls	January 2016	Wales
5,009	Red calls	January 2024	Wales

Showing 1 to 100 of 5,616 rows

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Main information

• Most recent update: 26 September 2025
• Next update expected: This dataset is not expected to be updated, but is expected to be replaced in the future
• Designation: Accredited official statistics
• Data provider: Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust
• Data source: No specific source from data provider
• Time period covered: January 2015 to December 2025

Data notes

Overview

• Summary of dataset and variables:

  Since April 2014, Local Health Boards have been responsible for providing emergency ambulance services (999 calls) for their local residents; the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) is commissioned to deliver emergency ambulance services on their behalf.

  As announced in a statement by the Deputy Minister for Health, a new clinical response model was implemented in Wales from 1 October 2015.

  The new model has three new categories of calls – Red, Amber and Green: • Red - Immediately life-threatening (someone is in imminent danger of death, such as a cardiac arrest). There is a target for 65 per cent of these calls to have a response within 8 minutes. • Amber- Serious but not immediately life-threatening (patients who will often need treatment to be delivered on the scene, and may then need to be taken to hospital). There will be no time-based target for amber calls; instead a range of clinical outcome indicators will be introduced to measure the quality, safety and timeliness of care being delivered alongside patient experience information, which will be published every quarter. • Green - Non urgent (can often be managed by other health services) and clinical telephone assessment. There is no official time based target for these calls.

• Data collection or calculation:

  Monthly return from the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST), at Local Health Board (LHB) level. Data is submitted on an EXCEL spreadsheet and transferred to an ACCESS database; validation checks including monthly trends are carried out and any queries are taken up with WAST.

• Statistical quality:

  Running calls (operational crews who arrive at the scene of an unrecorded incident without prior receipt of an emergency call) are counted as red calls, as are calls answered by either a Health Care Professional on Scene with a Defibrillator (MEDIC), or a Public Access Defibrillator (PAD).

  Health Care Professionals¹ (HCP) Urgent & Planned Calls are identified as green; where an HCP call poses an immediate threat to life, these calls will be prioritised according the final Medical Priority Dispatch System priority. ¹ Doctor, General Practitioner, Emergency Care Practitioner, Nurse, District Nurse, Midwife, Paramedic, Dentist, Approved Social Worker.

  As a result of these changes, nearly all of the data from the trial is not comparable to that for before October 2015. Some of the differences include: • Call categories A & C have been removed and replaced by colour coding. • Call handlers are allowed up to an additional two minutes to accurately identify both the severity and nature of a patient’s condition (for those calls that are not immediately life threatening), and the clinical resource they require before dispatching an ambulance. • A small proportion of calls that were classed as red 2 calls have been moved to the red category and a proportion of calls have been re-categorised from red 1. This means that comparisons cannot be made between performance against the old red1/2 categories and the current red category. • The changes will result in a reduction in the number of calls received with a time target. • An 8 minute response time target is only applied to red calls and therefore comparisons of the 8 minute target performance cannot be made for before and after 1 October 2015.

  The total number of calls received prior to 1 October 2015 can still be compared with total calls under the current model. This is done by adding in the GP urgent calls - which were classed as urgent not emergency - prior to December 2011.

  Therefore only overall call volumes can be compared over time, whilst all other measures during the trial period can only be compared within the trial model.

  CHANGES DURING THE TRIAL: From 11 November, calls which are originally coded as amber or green and during the initial call taking process the patient deteriorates, these are then re-coded through Professional Question & Answering or by the use of a manual dispatch code/override to red. For these calls, the clock start is re-registered as the time the call is re-coded to red.

  Calls which are originally coded as red and during the initial call taking process the patient’s condition improves these are then re-coded through Professional Question & Answering or by the use of a manual dispatch code/override to amber or green depending on condition. For these calls clock start is re-registered as the time the call is re-coded to amber or green.

  The overall impact of this meant that – from 11 to 30 November - an additional 37 calls arrived at the scene within the 8 minute target time, increasing the percentage arriving within the target time by 2.2 percentage points.

• Related reports:
  • NHS activity and performance summary (English)
  • NHS activity and performance summary quality report (English)
  • NHS activity and performance summary (Welsh)
  • NHS activity and performance summary quality report (Welsh)

Published by

• Organisation: Welsh Government
• Contact email: stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

Metadata

The metadata for this dataset is not included when you download the data. You can download this separately. This contains all the information from the 'About this dataset' tab.