The latest weekly situation report shows a handover time of 30:38, almost five minutes quicker compared with the same week last year 35:36.

Handovers taking more than an hour were down by a quarter (25.9%) last week (7,745) compared with the same week last year (10,454).

There were more than 4,000 (4,197) additional ambulance handovers with known times last week compared with the same week last year.

NHS national medical director Professor Meghana Pandit said: ‘Even though we are coming out of winter and there has been a great response from public to get protected with vaccinations, services are still busy, with more patients being conveyed to hospitals last week in an ambulance compared with the same week last year.

‘Yet despite indications that this has been the busiest winter on record, and pressures are higher than normal for this time of year, the hard work of NHS staff is paying off, with five-minute faster ambulance handover times.'