HEALTH Secretary Jeremy Hunt described new figures revealing South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) is still consistently failing to achieve vital targets as “disappointing”.

Mr Hunt, the Tory MP for Surrey South West, said: “Patients in the South East deserve the best possible care and should be able to rely on their local NHS services to deliver this.

“It is disappointing South East Coast Ambulance Trust is still not meeting crucial targets, but I’m reassured that, with support from NHS Improvement, concerns raised by the Care Quality Commission will be addressed and lead to the improvements needed to give patients the care they rightly expect.”

For the year to August 2016, the most serious red one emergency calls involving life-threatening respiratory or heart issues in the SECAmb region were responded to within the targeted eight minutes only 67.8 per cent of the time.

And for red two calls, comprising all other life-threatening emergencies, SECAmb responded to only 59.9 per cent of calls within the vital eight minute window.

The target for red one and two calls is to reach patients within eight minutes at least 75 per cent of the time.

The new figures were released last week by ambulance staff union GMB Southern, which has called for “proper investment and full recognition of skills” by the Government to solve the problems around the recruitment and retention of ambulance staff in the South East.

GMB Southern regional secretary Paul Maloney said: “The situation is at a critical level when less than 72 per cent of life or death emergency calls are responded to within eight minutes.

“The Government has created conditions which mean the public now have to wait longer for the ambulance service to respond.

“High vacancy rates and staff shortages mean existing staff have to shoulder more responsibility and crews responding to 999 calls are not adequately staffed.

“The current leaving rate in England of 6.1 per cent for qualified ambulance staff is outstripping the joining rate of 4.3 per cent with the situation getting worse.

“With vacancy levels at over 1,000 in the ambulance service, the Government must act fast if they want to seriously try and hit the response time targets.”

A SECAmb spokesman said: “We are committed to improving our current response time performance.

“Year-on-year increases in demand mean we are handling more 999 calls than ever before. We are working hard to recruit additional staff to tackle a national shortage of paramedics and to increase the number of staff working in our control rooms.

“We are very proud of the efforts of all our staff in responding to this increase in demand. We will continue to prioritise responding to our most seriously ill and injured patients and would like to remind the public that they should only dial 999 in the event of a serious emergency.”

• The new figures come after an independent review commissioned by SECAmb found “no harm” was caused to patients by a controversial pilot scheme that delayed emergency response times.

SECAmb has come under intense scrutiny after it was revealed that the trust ran the red three pilot at the end of 2014, which altered how the service dealt with less serious NHS 111 calls and resulted in up to 20,000 people having their ambulances delayed.

The scheme was criticised by NHS England for “putting the public at risk” and SECAmb chief executive Paul Sutton, who instituted the pilot, stepped down from his post in March.

But a patient impact review into the scheme published at the end of October found no evidence that any patients died or were even harmed as a result of the pilot.

The review was required as part of the formal undertakings SECAmb was asked to complete by NHS Improvement in addition to the forensic review into the red three pilot undertaken by Deloitte and already published, and an external governance review to be undertaken next year.

SECAmb acting chief executive Geraint Davies said: “We are satisfied this report, which was led by an independent and external clinician and which looked at 185,000 calls, has identified no evidence of patient harm attributable to the pilot.

“We do however recognise there were significant governance and other failings around the pilot. I am keen to ensure the trust now moves forward. SECAmb is going through an extremely challenging time but I am, with my senior team, committed to making the changes required to improve our service.”

The under-fire ambulance service was also criticised by the CQC in September, which recommended SECAmb be placed in special measures following a scathing in-depth inspection of the service. Among the CQC’s findings were that staff were over-worked, the trust was not meeting national targets for ambulance and 111 call response times, equipment was lacking, as well as a culture of bullying and poor leadership.