A total of 128,178 incidents were handled by the Ambulance Call Control Center from January 2025 to June 2026, with the first months of this year recording an increase compared to the corresponding period.
The increase in incidents, based on the available data, does not appear to have substantially affected the response time of ambulances, as the monthly median response time ranged between 9.67 and 10.82 minutes, with a total median of 10.33 minutes for the period January 2025 – June 2026.
However, the epidemiological and operational report of the Ambulance Service, which operates under OKYPY, (from January 2027 it will operate under the Ministry of Health as the National Ambulance Agency), highlights, once again, the particularly high percentage of simple transfers, i.e. patient transfers to and from hospitals, institutions and other health service structures, which, during the period under review, concerned almost four out of ten incidents.
In fact, the report characterizes transfers as a factor that limits the "flexibility of the fleet" since scheduled and non-urgent transports are carried out by ambulances that also respond to emergencies.
Growth of 2.4% in the first half of 2026
During 2025, the Ambulance Call Control Center handled 85,213 incidents, and in the first half of 2026, another 42,965 were recorded.
Compared to the corresponding six months of 2025, when 41.947 cases were recorded, there is an increase of 1.018 cases or 2,4%.
The largest annual increase occurred in April 2026 after cases increased from 6,415 in 2025 to 7,027, with an increase of 9.5%.
This was followed by June 2026 with an increase of 5.3%, (from 7,061 in 2025 to 7,433 in 2026).
January was the only month in the first half of 2026 in which a decrease was recorded compared to 2025. Specifically, the cases decreased from 7.627 in 2025 to 7.341, with the decrease estimated at 3,7%.
But the increase, as the report shows, did not come only from emergency calls.
The increase for them between the two years reached about 1,6% and specifically from 26,341 in the first half of 2025 to 26,761 in 2026.
The largest increase was observed in the other categories of cases by approximately 3.8%, (from 15.606 in 2025 to 16.204).
Of the total increase of 1.018 incidents, about 41% concerned urgent calls and 59% the other categories, which include simple and urgent transfers.
89 transfers per day
Of the 128.178 incidents of the total period, 80.455, a percentage of 62,8%, were recorded as urgent calls.
Simple transfers amounted to 47,437 or 37% of the total ambulance work. Simply put, almost four out of ten incidents handled by the Ambulance Service involved patient transport.
In 2025, 31,334 simple and urgent transfers were carried out, approximately 86 per day. In the first half of 2026, 16,103 were recorded, i.e. an average of about 89 per day.
The transfer rate increased slightly, from 36.8% in 2025 to 37.5% in the first half of 2026.
The largest category of transfers concerns transfers to homes or institutions. In the 18 months, 18,061 such cases were recorded.
Stable response time despite pressure
Despite the increase in cases, the basic median times, as shown by the Center's data, remained relatively stable.
For the entire 18-month period, the median activation time was 3.21 minutes and the median response time was 10.33 minutes.
The crews remained in the incident for a median time of 9.70 minutes, while the transport took 11.13 minutes and the delivery of the patient 4.52 minutes.
The response time was around 10 minutes throughout the period. In the first half of 2026, the best performance was recorded in April, with a median time of 9.67 minutes, and the highest in May, with 10.82 minutes.
However, as the report points out, only 34.7% of incidents achieved activation within two minutes, while 37.4% received a response within eight minutes.
Different times depending on the geographical area
Geography, as found by the report, seems to significantly affect the speed of response.
· The best median time was recorded in Paphos, with 8.25 minutes, followed by Larnaca with 9.13 minutes.
· In Limassol the median time was 10.37 minutes, in Famagusta 10.75 and in Nicosia 11.68 minutes.
· In mountainous areas, the longest median time was recorded, 12.82 minutes. The difference from Paphos reaches 4.57 cents.
The report, however, points out the fact that the stations with the highest volume of incidents do not necessarily have the highest response times.
In particular, stations such as Latsia, Strovolos, Engomi, Polemidia, despite the fact that they manage a large number of incidents, seem to maintain times comparable to other urban stations.
Almost six out of ten incidents in yellow or red priority
The "yellow" category, i.e. urgent or potentially urgent, concerned 46.3% of all cases (59,388).
The "purple" category, which mainly concerns transfers, concerned 47,559 (37.1%).
The "red", i.e. life-threatening cases were 17.715 or 13,8%.
In total, yellow and red categories accounted for 80.455 emergency calls, i.e. about six out of ten. The data highlights that a large part of the daily activity concerns incidents with urgent or potentially urgent characteristics.
Falls, shortness of breath and traffic accidents on the front line
The calls received by the Center during the 18 months were for "people who are not feeling well" and their number reached 21,554.
This was followed by falls with 10.703 incidents, respiratory problems and shortness of breath with 9.286, traffic collisions with 7.169 and fainting episodes with 5.576.
The most common categories also include cases of high clinical severity, such as chest pain, anaesthesia, bleeding, strokes and convulsions.
The epidemiological profile remained relatively stable between 2025 and the first half of 2026.
Very high success rates during screening
The overall agreement between the initial telephone sorting protocol and the final protocol recorded by the crews amounted to 98%.
In the first half of 2025, the agreement remained consistently above 99%. A similar picture was recorded until April 2026, with values ranging from 97.99% to 99.20%.
In May 2026, however, the agreement was reduced to 87.94% and in June to 89.37%.
The report considers it possible that the decline is related to changes in coding, different names of similar protocols or problems of quality and homogeneity of recordings.
