South Central Ambulance Service declared a critical incident at 11:30 on 25 June 2026. This is due to the extreme heat and a significant increase in Category 2 response times.
Declaring a critical incident allow us to focus resources on patients most in need and redirect capacity across the trust to address the contributing factors.
Contributing factors include:
- Increased call demand and acuity of patient needs.
- Increased pressure on other NHS services, diverting some demand to us and extending handover times at emergency departments.
Actions we are taking:
- Critical Incident response cell in place prioritising actions.
- Maximising crew capacity with additional shifts/overtime.
- Standing operational staff down from all non-essential activities to redeploy to frontline shifts.
- Maximising fleet availability.
Mark Ainsworth, Executive Director of Operations, said: “We continue to prioritise patients with the most serious injuries and illnesses, and our staff and volunteers are working extremely hard through the heat.
“We recognise that response times are longer than they should be and that’s why we’ve called the incident, to ensure everything possible is being done to improve the position.”
Things the public and our partners can help us with:
- Take extra care in the extreme heat, follow all the advice on coping in a heatwave, and don’t take unnecessary risks – particularly around water.
- Check in on vulnerable friends, family and neighbours to help them cope with the heat.
- Only call 999 for serious and life-threatening emergencies – consider alternatives for less serious issues, and call 111 if you’re not sure where to go.
- If hospital care is needed, and you can get yourself or the patient there through other means, rather than calling for an ambulance, please do so.
We expect the pressure to remain for several days even after the heat starts to subside. We will continue taking all possible actions to return to normal response times as quickly as possible.