It is thought new guidance on ambulance response times will be released at a future date A target requiring ambulances in England to attend less urgent 999 calls within 19 minutes is expected to be scrapped by the government.
The move forms part of a review into the way emergency health services in England are assesed.
It is thought an eight-minute response target for life-threatening emergencies will stay.
A new way of monitoring A&E performance is also to be introduced next year to improve the quality of care.
Ministers said the four-hour waiting limit was being retained, but hospitals will also be judged on other factors to get away from the sole focus on speed.
These include the number of unplanned re-attendances and patients who leave A&E without being seen.
The steps are part of Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s drive to move away from what he considers to be the blunt system of targets which have been used in recent years.
“The new measures will focus on quality of care ”
Andrew Lansley Health Secretary
He has already relaxed the rules around the 18-week hospital waiting time target and the 48-hour limit to see a GP.
He said he still wanted A&E units to see patients within the four-hour deadline.
But he added time was not the only factor on which they should be judged.
In total there are eight measures, including the four-hour waiting limit, which A&E units will be monitored on from April.
Alongside unplanned re-attendances and patients leaving without being seen, hospitals will also be expected to measure how long patients have to wait until initial assessment.
Category A ambulance calls, which include the most serious life-threatening conditions, will still need to be responded to in eight minutes.
But the 19-minute target for less serious calls will be changed, although the full details are not yet known.
“This is an opportunity to transform emergency care to ensure it becomes the jewel in the crown of the NHS.”
John Heyworth College of Emergency Medicine
Mr Lansley said: “The new measures will focus on quality of care and what matters most to patients – giving a better indication of patient care than the previous process-led targets ever could.”
The move has been welcomed by doctors who had often complained that the sole focus on the four-hour target distorted priorities.
The coalition had already reduced the threshold for meeting it from 98% to 95% and the hope is that this new focus on other measures will create a new stress on quality.
John Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: “This is an opportunity to transform emergency care to ensure it becomes the jewel in the crown of the NHS.”
The Patients Association said it was important to look at other measures, but added care should be taken to ensure the four-hour limit did not slip too often.
A spokeswoman said: “We do not want to go back to a situation where people are left on trolleys in A&E for days on end.”
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