Ambulances rush to more 999 calls

National statistics from the Information Centre For Health And Social Care for 2005/6 show that of those, 14,800 were classed as Category A - immediately life-threatening.

Three quarters (75.2 per cent) of those were responded to within eight minutes - up 0.2 per cent on the previous year's figures.

That means the ambulance service narrowly hit the target set by the Government of getting to 75 per cent of such calls within eight minutes.

But Hereford And Worcester Ambulance Service just missed the national target of responding to 95 per cent of Category B calls - serious but not immediately life threatening - within 19 minutes in rural areas and 14 minutes in urban ones.

Of the 26,300 Category B incidents, 94.6 per cent were reached in target time.

Of its 12,100 urgent patient journeys - for which ambulances should not arrive at hospital more than 15 minutes after the time agreed by GPs - Hereford And Worcester Ambulance Service managed to get 82.2 per cent there on target. But the national standard is 95 per cent.

A spokesperson for the former Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service NHS Trust - which merged with the Coventry And Warwickshire Ambulance Service and West Midlands Ambulance Service to form a single West Midlands Ambulance Service last month - said she welcomed the latest figures.

"Despite there being a single ambulance service for the West Midlands now, there is still a control room in Worcester that will use the Hereford and Worcester figures to help judge its performance," she said.

"As ever, it was a challenging year with the number of emergency calls received increasing, but the response times to the Category A calls still hit national targets and were only marginally off in Category B.

"With the urgent patient journeys, trusts across the country had trouble hitting targets as the emergency calls remain the priority.

"This will be subject to future improvements to ensure that residents of the two counties keep receiving a top-quality service."