The last three years has seen a significant deterioration in ambulance response times, according to new data project

Find out speed of ambulance response times in your UK postcode area

People living in East Anglia face some of the longest waits for an ambulance, according to new research.

The NHS sets a target that 75% of life-threatening calls are responded to within eight minutes.

However, 999 callers in the CM0 postcode in Maldon, Essex will have a median waiting time of 38 minutes while those in Norwich’s NR23 will usually wait around 28.

The areas surrounding London such as Watford, Cheshunt and St Albans generally wait fewer minutes for an ambulance than their neighbours in the capital.

The research was compiled via freedom of information requests by digital agency Totally Communications to produce an interactive map that allows you to see how quickly ambulances have been responding in your postcode over the last few years.

It unsurprisingly shows that there is a sharp divergence between fast ambulances getting to the scene in rural areas compared to those in urban ones.

That divide is particularly stark in Wales and Northern Ireland where people in the countryside may have to wait up to 15 minutes more than those in towns and cities.

NHS England used to described all life-threatening calls as “Category A”, however, that was split into two different measures called Red 1 and Red 2 in mid 2012.

Since then there has been a significant decline of standards since with the percentage of calls being responded to falling below 70% across both of these measures in December last year.



However, there has been considerable improvement in Scotland over the same period with the 75% target almost being met in 2012-13. There was a slight decline in 2013-14.