NHS in crisis: Sheffield patient dies after 2½ hour wait for ambulance

Louise Haigh, Labour MP for Sheffield Heeley, said the public were being “let down by a system in crisis” after the death of a constituent.

Leeds and Hull hospitals postpone ops as ‘crisis’ in A&E fills up beds

Tom Richmond: The NHS is not facing a humanitarian crisis. The real crisis is with its management

Ms Haigh said the man died after the ambulance took two hours longer than its target response time to reach him when he suffered breathing difficulties.

Guidelines say paramedics should have reached him within 40 minutes after he was classed as having a “potentially serious condition”.

Ms Haigh said: “This tragedy is utterly devastating for the family and there are serious questions for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

“But our dedicated and brilliant paramedics are working all the hours they can to provide a good service, yet both they and the public are being let down by a system in crisis.

“The Government promised that the NHS was safe in their hands but we are seeing a funding and community care crisis, made in Downing Street, which is leaving our A&Es under unprecedented pressure as demand reaches record levels.

“Rather than fiddling the figures, the Government must provide the funding they promised to the NHS urgently.

“That in 21st century Britain the Red Cross have been called in to help plug the gaps should be a mark of shame on this Government.

“They absolutely have to act before there are any more tragedies.”

Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Haigh said just 67% of category one “red” calls were answered within eight minutes in Sheffield last year.

She said: “Can the Secretary of State continue to stand at that despatch box and say the underfunding of our NHS is completely unlinked with these irresponsible and completely unacceptable response times?”

Mr Hunt said the situation surrounding the man’s death was “totally unacceptable” but denied that lack of funding was solely to blame for any problems faced by the ambulance service.

He said: “I think that she makes a mistake to continually bring this back to funding.

“It’s also about the demand pressures, it’s about the models of care, and in the case of the ambulance service, just to reassure her about the extra funding that has gone in, we have around 200 more ambulances, around 2,000 more paramedics and the ambulance service is doing, every day, around 3,400 blue light calls more than it was doing six years ago.

“So there has been significant investment but clearly more needs to happen.”