- South East Coast Ambulance Service under fire over response times
- Paramedics arrived too late to half of the life threatening call-outs last month
- One patient needing a lung transplant had waited two hours for an ambulance after the call was mistakenly classified as ‘non urgent’
An ambulance trust has recorded the NHS’s worst-ever response times following an exodus of call handlers.
Paramedics arrived too late to half of the life threatening call-outs at South East Coast Ambulance Service last month.
One patient needing a lung transplant had waited two hours for an ambulance after the call was mistakenly classified as ‘non urgent’.
The NHS’s target is for ambulance crews to reach at least 75 per cent of ‘red’ calls – the most serious – within eight minutes.
In September, the South East Coast Ambulance Service only reached 50.3 per cent of red calls in eight minutes
The NHS’s target is for ambulance crews to reach at least 75 per cent of ‘red’ calls – the most serious – within eight minutes
And until recently it was rare for any trust to slip below a figure of 70 per cent, even during the busy winter months.
In September, the South East Coast Ambulance Service only reached 50.3 per cent of red calls in eight minutes.
This is the lowest ever recorded by a trust since the system of monitoring performance targets were introduced in May 2012.
Documents uncovered by Health Service Journal blamed the delays on the loss of 40 staff from a call centre in Crawley, West Sussex.
They also revealed that half of 999 calls made in September had not been answered within five seconds – when every second counts.