Nikki Fox
BBC Look East

One of the things that's most striking about today is the social care that the East of England Ambulance Service crews provide.

They spent an hour and a half with Larry, who needed his wound glueing after he fell and banged his head on a radiator.

They then called social services, relatives, the GP, the sheltered housing unit and spoke to a neighbour.

It all takes time. It's their responsibility not to leave until they are sure he is OK.

We hope Larry is back to his old self soon.

BBC Sport

Chigwell's Ronnie O'Sullivan is back in action in the UK Championships this afternoon.

He takes on Matthew Stevens in round four at the York Barbican.  

You can watch the action live on BBC Two and BBC Red Button now.

The murder of an Essex woman in 1983 is one of nine unsolved cases that police in Suffolk are reappealing for help over. 

Image source, Suffolk Police

Diane Jones, 35, from Coggeshall was last seen at the front gate of her house as her husband parked their car in July 1983.

Her body was discovered three months later in a wooded area close to the A1093 in Suffolk. 

She was found to have a fractured skull, but Diane's killer has never been brought to justice. 

The murder is one of nine cold cases, external that Suffolk Police is still hopeful it can solve.

Yesterday we reported that a woman had died after being discovered unconscious at a house in Colchester on Monday.

Police say they're now not treating the 40-year-old's death as suspicious. 

A 59-year-old man, who'd been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm following the incident in Mountbatten Drive, has been released without charge.  

Nikki Fox
BBC Look East

Up until 10:00 today, the East of England Ambulance Service received 771 emergency calls. Of those, 24 were R1 calls and 289 were R2s. 

An R1 or red 1 is a very serious call where a patient has suffered a cardiac arrest or stopped breathing. Two resources should be dispatched to these incidents where possible.

R2 is all other life-threatening emergencies and requires a response in eight minutes. 

Here's how they break down by county:

Seventy-six for Bedfordshire, 118 for Cambridgeshire, 219 in Essex, 139 in Hertfordshire, 113 in Norfolk and 106 in Suffolk.

Busy morning!

Martin Barber
BBC News

As our day with the East of England Ambulance Service crew continues, we're with Larry, who had a fall at his home in Watton.

As you can see he's doing fine now. He slipped off his push-along walker and banged his head on a radiator.

He was about to be picked up to go shopping when a taxi driver found him and called the ambulance service.

Larry says he was a rear gunner in a Lancaster and ran 42 missions in his plane, called Olivia.

He's really apologetic for having "bothered" the ambulance crew⁠⁠⁠.

"I feel a bloody nuisance at the moment," he said. "You've got people who are seriously ill."

Pirate radio station Radio Caroline could soon be rocking the waves once again after applying for an AM licence from Ofcom. 

Image source, Getty Images

The ship-based station is hoping to be back broadcasting on the River Blackwater by next year, 50 years after the 1967 Marine Broadcasting Offence Act was introduced. 

The proposed AM signal would serve Essex and Suffolk in addition to its current internet and digital radio operation. 

Peter Moore, who runs Radio Caroline, said: "We think it would be very fitting that, 50 years after the law intended to silence us once and for all, we show that it didn't work."

The station, immortalised in Richard Curtis's film The Boat That Rocked, was founded in 1964 to play pop music all day in a time where broadcasting was dominated by the BBC and pop was played for an hour a week.

The East of England Ambulance Service is hoping its taking part in a trial to improve response times will also lead to the target system being reviewed.

Kevin Brown, director of service delivery, said: "With the eight minute target, if we see someone within seven minutes and 59 seconds, it's seen as a success and if we get there at eight minutes and one second, then it's a failure, regardless of the outcome for the patient.

"What we would like to see as a measure is the outcome for the patient." 

Andrew Woodger
BBC News

As part of a trial, the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) control room operators are to get an extra 240 seconds to assess 999 calls.

It's an attempt to reach the eight minute response time target.

Kevin Brown, EEAS director of service delivery, said: "It's allowing us to target the right resource to the right patient. We have an extra 240 seconds to respond to that from the time of the call."

A meeting is being held today to discuss the future of Essex's chief fire officer David Johnson, BBC Essex understands. 

Mr Johnson was suspended on full pay by Essex Fire and Rescue Service in April 2015, after being on sick leave since June 2014, and is yet to return.  

Fire unions have previously claimed more than £600,000 has been spent on costs associated with his suspension.

BBC Weather Watchers

Thanks to BBC Weather Watcher "Zeeethree" for this photo.

You may have heard of "Pimp My Ride, external", but "Pimp My Walking Frame" is certainly a new one to us.

However, one Essex care home is certainly trying to start a new trend, as residents at Chalkney House in White Colne are "pimping" their walking frames. 

The home says it helps elderly residents to use their own frames, rather than other people's which might be the wrong size. It hopes this will reduce the number of falls at the home.

Martin Barber
BBC News

John has been telling me that only about 8-10% of the workload with the East of England Ambulance Service crew is dealing with traumas. The rest is acute medical emergencies and care of the elderly, as we're an ageing population.

We're just approaching the hospital - it's taken about 25 minutes.

We're in no hurry as our patient is stable and comfortable. Upon arrival at the N&N the patient will be given an X-ray and ECG. 

It's not yet possible to take an X-ray on the ambulances, but some of the vehicles do have ultrasound facilities.

Nikki Fox
BBC Look East

Sharon is 40 years old. She's a student paramedic and a qualified emergency medical technician. Before that she worked for a pub management company.  

Being a paramedic is her dream job. She likes the variety of the job and meeting new people. The East of England Ambulance Service really needs people like her, as it has a real shortage of paramedics.

John says his age is "just a number". He's been working as a paramedic for 24 years and did 13 years with the East Anglian Air Ambulance. He now works part-time and says "it's all about the patients". 

"It's about making a difference, not just about the worse case scenarios but those social care cases, the care of the elderly and helping to create care pathways'," he said.

Robby West
BBC Look East

The reason our reporters are out on an ambulance today is because the BBC is looking at the current state of the services around the country.

New figures collected by the BBC show the percentage of calls to the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) that took more than 12 minutes to respond to has risen from 14% to 22% since 2013 - the second highest in the country. 

Emergency calls to the ambulance service are broken down into red 1 calls, covering patients who are not breathing and don't have a pulse, and red 2 calls for patients in a serious condition but who are less immediately time critical, such as those who have had a stroke or fit.

Since 2013, EEAS has responded to 208,136 red 1 and red 2 calls that took over 12 minutes to respond to.

In our region, average response times for red 1 calls have increased from six minutes 39 seconds to seven minutes 30 seconds.

Average response times for red 2 calls have increased from seven minutes 12 seconds to nine minutes 17 seconds.

Essex Police says it is investigating the circumstances that led to the fatal collision outside the Asda in Shoeburyness yesterday afternoon.

The force added that no-one had been arrested, and appealed for anybody who witnessed what happened to get in touch.

A 100-year-old woman has died after being hit by a minibus outside an Asda in Shoeburyness yesterday afternoon, police say.

The woman, from Thorpe Bay, was hit after the vehicle mounted the pavement area at the front of the store in North Shoebury Road, at about 13:50. 

A 71-year-old woman, also a pedestrian, suffered slight injuries. 

The minibus was being driven by a woman in her 50s, police said.

A 100-year-old woman has died after she was hit by a minibus in an Asda car park in Shoeburyness yesterday afternoon.

More follows.

Martin Barber
BBC News

We're now en route to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, external with our first patient of the day.

Our patient has had some pain relief and bloods taken, so they can be sent for analysis on arrival at the hospital to speed up her care.

She's also getting some fluids to make sure she's hydrated.

The ambulance is equipped with a new "multi-monitor". It's a defibrillator which also measures blood pressure and oxygen saturation in the blood, among other things.

Nikki Fox
BBC Look East

I'm out with the East of England Ambulance Service this morning as the BBC spends a day looking at the pressures faced by the ambulance services.

The number of calls received by the service has risen by 30% since 2013.

We're out with the crew Sharon and John. Sharon is a first-year student paramedic who is off to university next year.   

We had an amusing start as we got in the back of the wrong ambulance! 

First call to a 93-year-old lady who has had a fall at a care home in Norwich. She is being taken to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. 

The East of England Ambulance service, external covers 7,500 square miles and 17 hospitals. 

The crew we're with are doing a 12-hour shift. It took them just six minutes to get from Longwater to Thorpe Hamlet, in Norwich.