SERIOUSLY ill patients are continuing to wait too long for an ambulance with figures showing some of the worst response times in the country.

Latest figures show less than half of South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb) crews are arriving to urgent calls within the eight minute standard.The calls are those classed as Red 2, which include patients who are suffering a stroke or fits.

These are serious but not the most immediately life-threatening compared to Red 1 calls, which cover patients who are not breathing or do not have a pulse.

About 75 per cent of calls for Red 1 and 2 categories need to be responded to within eight minutes.

However details published by NHS England show in March Secamb answered 67.3 per cent of Red 1 calls and 49.6 per cent Red 2 calls on time.

The 49.6 per cent figure was the lowest recorded by an ambulance trust in England for that month.

Secamb has consistently struggled to meet its response time targets.

A spokesman said: “We recognise that we, along with other ambulance services nationally, are not meeting the response time targets set and we have a recovery plan in place to address this. We continue to experience year-on-year increases in demand and we are very proud of the efforts and professionalism of our staff.

“There are times when the demand placed on our resources means that we take longer than we would like to reach some patients.

“Delays at hospitals continue to have an impact on our responsiveness and we are continuing to work closely with hospitals across our region to ensure patients are handed over as quickly as possible so our crews are available to respond to patients in the community.”

The trust previously faced criticism over an unauthorised project which delayed some ambulances to allow advisors time to assess calls coming through the 111 telephone system.

The move was described as “high risk” in an independent report.