Ambulance delays have come under the scrutiny after a Santa at a Christmas fair had to wait nearly two hours for paramedics following a fall in Hounslow.

The 76-year-old from Feltham who suffers from diabetes fell and broke his shoulder at the event in the borough on Sunday (December 11) afternoon.

The pensioner, who did not wish to be named, is now recovering at home.

The following day Seema Malhotra , MP for Feltham and Heston , raised the issue in Parliament and has written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanding an explanation for the "unacceptable" waiting time, current capacity issues and the government's plans to address them ahead of Christmas.

A LAS vehicle attends to an incident in west London

Ms Malhotra said she spoke to the emergency services and was informed that they were “re-triaging” as they were experiencing high delays and that things had been “worse than this”.

In addition, she was also informed that at the time of the accident, 3.45pm, there were 37 calls awaiting ambulances in south and south west London, and 162 across London .

Figures from NHS England show not one ambulance trust reached its response time targets in the month of October 2016.

Ambulance Trust Red 1 calls responded to withing 8 minutes Red 2 calls responded to within 8 minutes Category A calls responded to within 19 minutes
England

67%

63%

90%

East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust

68%

59%

85%

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

70%

64%

91%

Isle of Wight NHS Trust

67%

70%

93%

London Ambulance Service NHS Trust

69%

66%

94%

North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

65%

62%

91%

North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust

65%

63%

88%

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

71%

72%

94%

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

65%

54%

90%

MP Seema Malhotra demands explanation from Jeremy Hunt over ambulance waiting times

The target is 75% for Red 1 and Red 2 within 8 minutes, and 95% for Category A within 19 minutes.

The data for London Ambulance Service (LAS) showed 69% for Red 1 calls, 66% for Red 2 calls and 94% for Category A calls.

The "extreme cases" or Category A waiting times in October 2016 for LAS revealed 1% of responses took more than 39 minutes to arrive at the scene, and 5% took more than 19 minutes.

Ms Malhotra said: “Delays like this are wholly unacceptable.

"This is far too long for an elderly man to be left in pain, and the figures confirm this picture of delays across the country.

“The care he received when ambulance staff arrived was excellent, but they are clearly too overstretched.

“I am extremely concerned that these capacity issues mean the situation could get considerably worse as we approach the holidays.

“The government needs to take action now to make sure that our ambulance service is properly prepared for the Christmas period.”

MP Seema Malhotra's letter to health secretary Jeremy Hunt

Director of operations at London Ambulance Service, Paul Woodrow said: “We are very sorry for the delay in reaching this patient and for any distress this caused, however we are exceptionally busy and last week (5 to 11 December) we received 40,443 emergency calls, compared to 37,390 the previous week – an 8% rise.

“We remained in contact with the patient’s family at the scene and he was conscious and alert, and an ambulance was already on the way when we were called at 4.18pm to say he was feeling worse.

“We prioritise all emergency calls so patients in life-threatening conditions get the quickest response.”

The ambulance was called at 2.27pm on Sunday December 11 to reports of a patient who had fallen and arrived at 4.21pm.

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