East of England ambulance response times criticised

The East of England Ambulance Service is still not responding quickly enough to 999 calls for the most life-threatening cases, says health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The trust is trying to turn the service around following strong criticism of poor response times. The CQC's latest report after an unannounced inspection last month says there has been progress.

It says the service did meet the standard in five key areas but was still failing on two others.

The trust handles more than 900,000 emergency 999 calls a year across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.