Other measures

What this answers: On average, how long did it take an ambulance to arrive for category 2 emergency calls?

Definition: Mean response time, in minutes, for category 2 incidents (serious conditions such as suspected stroke, heart attack or sepsis). NHS England publishes it in seconds (AmbSYS indicator A31); it is converted to minutes here. The national standard is an 18-minute average.

• Response times inside Portsmouth may differ from the average across the whole service area, which is largely rural in places. A Portsmouth-only figure is not published.
• Longer response times are often linked to ambulances waiting to hand patients over at busy hospitals.

Series breaks: 2017-08: Series starts in August 2017 when response categories were introduced; earlier response-time measures are not comparable.

NHS England: Ambulance Quality Indicators: Ambulance Systems Indicators (AmbSYS) time series ↗ · AmbSYS-to-Sep-2026-as6t8.csv · retrieved 2026-11-09

What this answers: What share of adult patients registered with GP practices in the area have depression recorded on their GP's register?

Definition: Recorded prevalence: patients aged 18 and over on GP practice depression registers (Quality and Outcomes Framework, QOF), as a percentage of registered patients aged 18 and over. Practices are assigned to the local authority where the practice is, not where patients live.

• This is recorded prevalence, not true prevalence. It counts people diagnosed and recorded by a GP, so it also reflects how readily people seek help and how practices record depression.
• Practices are placed in an area by the practice postcode, so patients registered with a city practice who live outside the city are included, and vice versa.
• A rise can reflect more diagnosis and recording as well as more illness.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID): Fingertips: Depression: QOF prevalence (18+) (indicator 848) ↗ · Retrieved 2026-11-09; periods 2012/13 to 2024/25 · retrieved 2026-11-09

What this answers: How many deaths from suicide were registered per 100,000 people, after allowing for differences in age?

Definition: Age-standardised rate of deaths from suicide and injury of undetermined intent per 100,000 people aged 10 and over, by date of death registration, with three years combined to reduce chance variation. Undetermined-intent deaths are counted only for people aged 15 and over.

• Numbers in one city are small (tens of deaths over three years), so the confidence interval is wide. A difference from England may not be statistically meaningful.
• Figures are by year of registration. Inquests can take months or years, so deaths are often registered well after they happened.
• Rates are suppressed where there are fewer than 10 deaths.

Series breaks: 2001 - 03: Rates for 2001 to 2006 were revised in March 2015 to remove a cause-of-death code that had been included by mistake; use only the current series.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID): Fingertips: Suicide rate (indicator 41001) ↗ · Retrieved 2026-11-09; periods 2001 - 03 to 2023 - 25 · retrieved 2026-11-09

What this answers: How many emergency hospital admissions for intentional self-harm were there per 100,000 people, after allowing for differences in age?

Definition: Directly age-standardised rate of emergency hospital admissions for intentional self-harm per 100,000 people, all ages, for residents of the area (Hospital Episode Statistics).

• Hospital admissions are a small share of all self-harm. Most self-harm never reaches hospital, and many people treated in A&E are not admitted.
• Hospitals differ in how they code whether an injury was intentional and in when they admit, which affects comparisons between areas.
• From 2021/22 hospitals moved same-day emergency care from admitted-patient data to the emergency care dataset at different times, which may reduce the admissions counted here.

Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID): Fingertips: Emergency Hospital Admissions for Intentional Self-Harm (indicator 21001) ↗ · Retrieved 2026-11-09; periods 2010/11 to 2023/24 · retrieved 2026-11-09