CONCERNS have been raised about the length of time it is taking ambulances to reach 999 patients in the York area.

Figures have shown the Yorkshire Ambulance Service(YAS) is still consistently missing targets to get to the most serious “Red 1” medical emergencies, such as heart attacks and respiratory arrests.

In the York area the target is for 75 per cent of ambulance to arrive at these emergencies within eight minutes but this is regularly being missed. In August 65.7 per cent of ambulances made the time limit, 72.1 per cent in September and 71.6 per cent in October.

The figures were presented in a report to the Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group governing body meeting this week.

Keith Ramsay of Vale of York CCG said about the breached targets: "It's something that seems not to be able to be solved.

"It's a poor service to patients in our area, we have to do something about it."

However, during the same months the ambulance service has met the target of 75 per cent to other life threatening emergencies deemed critical but less immediately serious, classed as “Red 2”.

In August, September and October, the ambulance service achieved 75.1 per cent , 77.5 per cent and 75.4 per cent respectively.

YAS has vowed to meet its combined targets in York by January 2015, the Vale of York CCG report said.

A spokeswoman for YAS said: "Overall demand for emergency ambulances is increasing year-on-year and this is reflected across the whole country. In Yorkshire and the Humber demand for the most seriously ill and injured patients in the first six months of the year was up by 11.5 per cent which equates to nearly 15,000 more in the year-to-date.

"The October 2014 figures for ‘Red’ response times have shown improvement with 73.83 per cent of incidents responded to within the 8-minute target (the national target is 75 per cent).

"Whilst we are working hard to make further improvements to our response times, it is important to remember that they are not the only measure of the care we provide to patients and our focus remains on providing safe and high-quality services. In the last year we have seen a 43 per cent improvement in survival to discharge in patients who have collapsed due to cardiac causes. In patient terms, 124 patients have walked out of hospitals following a cardiac arrest due to the high standard of care provided by our staff. "