AN MP is looking to work with ambulance bosses to help improve emergency care for residents living in rural east Cleveland.

Simon Clarke, who represents Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, held a meeting with North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) after he discovered response times to life threatening emergencies are below target in the area.

The Conservative MP said Department of Health targets require that the ambulance service reaches 75 per cent of Red One – life threatening – calls within eight minutes.

However, data requested from NEAS reveals that for the period September 2016-July 2017, showed that only a third of Red One calls were responded to within eight minutes in TS13 (Skinningrove, Loftus and Liverton Mines) and TS14 (Guisborough). By contrast, almost nine in ten Red One calls from TS4 (Ladgate ward) were responded to within eight minutes.

In an attempt to resolve the issue, he held talks with Yvonne Ormston, the NEAS chief executive, and Douglas McDougall, NEAS head of strategic operations for the south of the region.

Mr Clarke said: “It’s crucial people living in East Cleveland receive the ambulance cover they deserve. It’s always going to be harder to meet response time targets in rural areas than in central Middlesbrough but we need to close the gap.

“We’re lucky in our ambulance service - NEAS is rated Good by the independent Care Quality Commission and I know both management and medical professionals work incredibly hard to keep us all safe. This isn’t about a blame game but about an honest recognition of the challenge we face.

“Funding may be part of the answer but this isn’t a guaranteed solution – the best funded ambulance trust, South East Coast, is rated Inadequate."

According to the MP, NEAS receives the lowest funding per head of the ten ambulance trusts in England - £26.70 compared to £34.90 across the border in Yorkshire and the highest figure of £36.60 for South East Coast.

Douglas McDougall, NEAS Head of Strategic Operations South, said patient safety was their priority and accepted that rural areas created their own unique problems for response times.

He said: “Last month we welcomed the introduction of the new ambulance response programme, which focuses more on clinical outcomes as opposed to response time targets, balancing the need to get there quickly with measuring clinical outcomes.

“We appreciate the MP’s support and look forward to working with him in the future to improve the response standards in his area.”