East Yorkshire ambulances fail on 999 response times

Ambulances in parts of East Yorkshire are failing to meet a target to attend 75% of life-threatening 999 calls within eight minutes, figures show.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Yorkshire Ambulance Service revealed only 48.27% of responses in the mid-Holderness area were met.

MP Graham Stuart, who requested the FOI, said the service was "sub-standard and patient care is being put at risk".

The service said it was working hard to deliver "the best possible service".

The figures, from July 2011 to June 2012, showed that December had the poorest response rate in mid-Holderness, where ambulances had arrived in less than eight minutes for only 38.10% of cases.

The south-Holderness area had the second worst response rate at 57.90% in the 12-month period.

However, response times to serious 999 calls in Beverley had exceeded the national target at 82.25%.

Mr Stuart, the Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness, said: "Rural areas can never expect consistently to have the same ambulance response times as cities but we can do better than this."

David Whiting, chief executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said he was "committed to making improvements in the Holderness area, including mobilising volunteer community first responders".

He said: "By increasing access to defibrillators and the number of people within local communities who know how to deliver CPR [cardiopulmonary resuscitation], together we can save more lives."

Mr Stuart said he had asked for the number of first responder trainers to be increased and would monitor the ambulance service's performance.