HEALTH Secretary and town MP, Jeremy Hunt, has expressed his “disappointment” after new figures revealed the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) is still consistently failing to achieve vital response time targets.

In the year to August 2016, SECAmb responded to just 68 per cent of the most serious Red 1 emergency calls involving life-threatening respiratory or heart issues and just 60 per cent of Red 2 calls, comprising all other life-threatening emergencies, within eight minutes - falling short of the 75 per cent target.

This prompted ambulance union GMB Southern to appeal directly to the health secretary 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.

Responding, Mr Hunt said his department is aware that ambulance services are busy, and vowed to increase paramedic training places by more than 60 per cent in 2016/17, on top of the 2,200 extra paramedics that have joined the NHS since 2010.

He told The Herald: “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 that 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 CQC will be addressed and lead to the improvements needed to give patients the care they rightly expect.”

The MP for South West Surrey also blamed unprecedented demand on ambulance services for poor response times, pointing to figures that show ambulance services are making more than 3,400 extra emergency journeys every day compared to 2010.

Despite this extra pressure, he added ambulance services continue to respond to the majority of life-threatening calls within eight minutes.