Emergency Departments and ambulance services across the South East continued to see improved response and treatment times last month despite further increases in demand.

357,740 people attended emergency departments in March, and although that represents an 11.6% increase year-on-year and 35,000 more than last month, providers were able to treat an additional 6,601 patients within the four-hour standard.

The percentage of patients being seen, treated, admitted or discharged within four hours also continued to improve and out-perform the national picture, hitting 77.1%, surpassing the government aim of 76%.

Ambulance services in the South East continued to be busy with 123,101 incidents responded to in March 2024, an increase on previous year of 9% and nearly 8,000 more than February. Responses to category one calls (life threatening injuries and illnesses, specifically cardiac arrests) further improved and are now 22 seconds faster than the start of 2024, and responses to category two calls (emergency calls such as stroke patients) are 4 minutes and 28 seconds quicker than the end of last year.

Dr Vaughan Lewis, NHS England’s Medical Director for the South East, said:

“Once again, despite month-on-month increases in demand we have seen an improvement in the percentage of people who are admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.”

“Ambulance responses to life threatening calls continues to improve and treatment times for patient in emergency departments are exceeding government targets across the South East region.

“Thanks to the hard work of the staff across the region, improvements have been made for the third consecutive month and patient are spending less time waiting for treatment.”