3,450 patients with conditions like heart attacks and strokes waited over 90 minutes for an ambulance in the Crawley area in December

New analysis reveals that across our local ambulance service, 3,450 patients with emergency conditions had to wait 1 hour 37 minutes for an ambulance in December. The target is 18 minutes.

The average response time in the South East Coast Ambulance Service area for so-called ‘Category 2 ambulance calls’ was a staggering 46 minutes, while one in ten patients in this category waited 1 hour 37 minutes or longer. Category 2 is for ‘emergency calls’ – for conditions such as heart attacks and strokes.

Paramedics and other NHS staff are doing everything they can to try to meet the needs of their patients, but after 13 years of the Conservatives running-down the NHS the system has never been so stretched. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which speaks for A&E doctors, estimates that 500 people a week are dying needlessly while they wait for urgent care

The next Labour government will provide the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history to treat patients on time again, and reform the health service to make it fit for the future. We will train 7,500 more doctors and 10,000 more nurses and midwives every year, paid for by abolishing the non-dom tax status. Patients in Crawley need doctors and nurses more than the wealthiest need a tax break.”