Revealed: Buckinghamshire towns with worst ambulance responses

Just 36 per cent of ‘life threatening’ calls are reached in eight minutes in Princes Risborough – the minimum is 75 per cent.

This makes it the worst in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire – while Chalfont gets 41 per cent and Beaconsfield 55 per cent.

More urban areas such as High Wycombe and Aylesbury get about 90 per cent, underlining a recent probe’s concerns that the county suffers a ‘two-tier’ service.

The investigation said bosses focus on getting good responses to urban incidents – which are higher in number – to push up its overall target score.

Yet this is at the expense of more remote rural areas, for which there is ‘no incentive’ it argues. They also warned those reached within eight minutes might not get the right help.

Councillor Bill Bendyshe-Brown, who represents Risborough, said: “I am quite surprised and shocked at the low percentage achievements against the standards.”

Cllr Bendyshe-Brown, a member of Princes Risborough Town Council and Wycombe District Council, said: “They have got to start concentrating on the rural areas.”

Chiltern District Council health spokesman Councillor Noel Brown said he was ‘surprised how bad’ Chalfont’s 41 per cent is.

He said: “It is simply not good enough, particularly when someone is in a life and death situation potentially.”

Cllr Brown cited a case of a woman who had fallen and broken her arm in a Chesham car park and had to wait more than an hour for an ambulance.

Conservative Councillor Mike Appleyard, who helped lead the probe, said ‘the problem is with the Government’ as it sets the target.

He said: “Clearly what is happening is the ambulance service is focussing on the urban areas where it is pretty easy to achieve the target because business is so high.”

The figures – for October to December – show 516 calls in High Wycombe, 193 in Chesham and 174 in Amersham.

This was 97 for Risborough, 102 for Chalfont and 86 for Beaconsfield.

And he said even these figures ‘are not based on a very sound foundation’ as the eight minute clock stops if a volunteer or fire service ‘co-responder’ gets there first.

These may not have the right skills to treat a patient, such as someone who suffers a broken leg, he said.

Yet South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust has said these responses can make a difference to patients.

And it said: “The trust locates ambulances based on anticipated need, nearest to where a call is most likely to be, which is usually in more densely populated areas.”

It said it is ‘developing action plans to address key issues’ but warned calls had doubled in the last decade and people had to consider whether they need an ambulance.

It said: “Our overall performance has improved by 23 per cent since 2007, 50 per cent in rural areas.”

In a statement to the BFP, the Department of Health said: “All ambulance trusts have a duty to ensure that patients get an appropriately rapid response.”

It said the target and other standards ‘represent the service we expect patients to receive’.

It said: “Many local NHS services already look at localised performance data, but whether and how they do this is up to each trust to decide.

The Department regularly reviews the level of data that it collects to ensure that it is able to adequately monitor NHS performance without placing an unreasonable burden of reporting on the NHS.

“There are currently no plans to change the level at which ambulance data is collected.”

Response times are so poor that even the overall target is not being met in Buckinghamshire.

Latest figures, for April to December, show 57.9 per cent for the eight minute target.

Click the link below for the investigation report and more stories on ambulances.