Following the roll out of new call categories on 1st July 2025, the Welsh Ambulance Service has seen significant improvements in ambulance handover times across hospitals in Wales.

The new call categories include a purple category for out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, separating it from red (life threatening emergencies like serious trauma) and orange (time-sensitive conditions like a stroke) categories. Orange is set to be implemented before winter.

At Royal Glamorgan Hospital, almost three quarters of patients were transferred within 15 minutes, which is an 87 per cent reduction in ambulance times in June compared to MAy. Morriston Hospital in Swansea also reported a 70 per cent drop.

But despite progress, variation remains across the country, and pressure on emergency services continues. June saw the highest daily attendances at emergency departments on record, although the average time for arrival to triage fell to 16 minutes, which is the shortest time since February 2021.

The Welsh health secretary, Jeremy Miles, said: “Today’s figures who that our focus on improving ambulance patient handover performance is working, with handover times in June the lowest since September 2021.

“With improvements in same day emergency care and patient flow in place, significant progress is being made in most areas of Wales.

“Staff across Wales work hard day in, day out, to provide the best possible care for patients and I want to thank them for their continued efforts and the improvements we are seeing.

“We’ve recently set up a national, clinically-led Taskforce to support these efforts and have been clear with health boards about our expectations.

“With changes to how the ambulance service manages 999 calls, it’s important we continue to work to see further progress to ambulance patient handover performance.”