Ambulance time target to be scrapped

The requirement for ambulances to get to serious but non-life-threatening cases within 19 minutes is to be replaced with a set of 11 new indicators, the government has announced.

Ambulances will still be required to respond to three-quarters of immediately life-threatening (category A) calls within eight minutes.

They will also have to perform against a set of new measures, such as how well patients fare after suffering a cardiac arrest or stroke.

Health secretary Andrew Lansley insisted that the new range of performance measures for emergency care would help to stop the "isolated" focus on faster care.

He argued that time targets can "distort" priorities and lack clinical justification.

"This is not about hitting targets – importantly, it is about giving the NHS more freedom to deliver quality care," the minister added.

John Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said that the new measures should provide "tangible improvements" for patients.