‘Poor’ 999 times lead to demand for talks

Nearly a third of ambulances answering life-saving calls in the East Riding failed to arrive within the Government’s eight-minute deadline last year.

In a motion to East Riding Council yesterday Coun Jane Evison said figures were getting worse and called on the chief executive and chairman of Yorkshire Ambulance Service to meet with them.

Speaking before the meeting she said: “Our main concern has to be the service that East Riding residents are getting which as far as we are concerned is nowhere near as good as it could or should be. The object of getting Yorkshire Ambulance Service into a meeting with us is to identify what the reasons are and to get them to work with us.”

The service is carrying out a confidential survey of patients who have called 999. But Coun Evison said: “It sounds like a smokescreen. It doesn’t sound as if it could help solve the problem.”

Between last April and this March, the Category A eight minute response for immediately life-threatening cases was met in Hull in 87.4 per cent of cases, in the East Riding it was 68.4 per cent, just higher than North Yorkshire at 68.2 per cent. In Hull the Category B 19 minute response for “serious but not life-threatening” cases was hit 97.9 per cent of the time, against the East Riding’s 89.6 per cent.

The assistant director of A&E operations for Hull and East Riding at YAS, Paul Mudd, said: “It is our priority to respond to all emergency calls as quickly as possible and we are committed to making further improvements to our service to ensure we provide the best care for our patients.

“As with all ambulance services covering vast rural areas, the geography and sparsely dispersed population can present particular challenges in responding to emergencies.”