East of England Ambulance staff at 'point of fatigue'

Robert Morton said he wanted to appoint more paramedics

Staff at an ambulance service have been pushed "to the point of fatigue" by targets, according to their new chief executive.

Robert Morton is the head of the East of England Ambulance Service.

It was fined £1.2m for failing to reach 75% of life-threatening emergencies within eight minutes in 2014, but exceeded that target this year.

Mr Morton said the only way to reduce pressure on "clearly overworked" staff was to recruit more people.

He took up his job on 24 August, having held similar posts in Northern Ireland and Australia.

Dr Anthony Marsh was interim chief executive of East of England Ambulance Service while also chief executive of the West Midlands Ambulance Service

The trust was heavily criticised in parliament in 2013 and board members and the chief executive later resigned.

Interim boss Dr Anthony Marsh was attacked for his salary package, but delivered a new fleet of ambulances and recruited more paramedics, leading to some petitioning for him to stay in post.

Mr Morton said his predecessor had taken the right decisions after years of low recruitment.

"I think we've pushed staff because of the targets to a point of fatigue," he said.

"We don't have enough people on the ground, we have issues around late finishes and staff are not getting meal breaks."

Unison official Tim Roberts said he hoped Mr Morton would also look at "workplace stress and enforced overtime which are causing experienced staff to leave".

The new chief executive said he needed to recruit additional staff, especially more paramedics.