Shocking new figures reveal that people across the south west including Dorset are facing increasingly dangerous delays for medical help.

A Parliamentary Question tabled by the Liberal Democrats has uncovered that people living in the region who suffer a heart attack will wait more than 20 minutes longer for an ambulance than the national average.

It shows that the south west has the longest ambulance waiting times in the country for emergency calls - a typical response will take nearly 15 minutes longer than in the north west, the second worst performing region.

The average wait time for an ambulance for category 2 calls (heart attacks and strokes) has doubled to more than one hour in the past two years, while the average wait for category 3 (burns and births) is up to almost three hours.

The Lib Dems are calling for emergency action to be taken in the Queen’s Speech tomorrow to address the crisis and give paramedics and handlers the support they need. This includes urgent investment in A&E departments and a new Community Ambulance Fund, as well as a review of ambulance station closures.

The party’s health spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: "Staff are at breaking point and lives are in danger."

She added: "Patients and families across the south west deserve better than waiting in pain and distress, or even worse, losing loved ones. After years of driving the region’s NHS into the ground, the Conservatives really need to wake up to this life threatening crisis, make a plan and turn this around.

“We need to see that plan in the Queen’s Speech so that this issue is treated with the urgency it demands.”

The Parliamentary Question found that the average ambulance response time for category 2 calls in 2021/22 for South Western Ambulance Service was 1 hour, 1 minute and 57 seconds. This is up from 28m and 37s in 2019/20; and is higher than the national average of 41m and 17s.

The NHS target for Category 2 is 18 minutes and at least 9 out of 10 times (90th percentile) within 40 minutes.

The average ambulance response time for category 3 calls in 2021/22 for South Western Ambulance Service was 2h, 43m and 54s. This is up from 1h, 17m and 17s in 2019/20; and is higher than the national average of 2h, 13m and 40s.

A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “Due to the health and social care system being under sustained pressure, patients are having to wait longer for an ambulance then they would expect.

“There are a number of reasons for these delays, including the time it can take to hand over patients to emergency departments, but we’d also encourage people who have family and friends who are medically fit to leave hospital to support them, where they are able, to do so.    

“We will continue to work hard to address handover delays with our health and social care partners, to enable us to provide the service that our patients expect of us and one that our dedicated staff are supported to deliver.”