KNOWLE and Dorridge is low in the West Midlands league table for ‘life threatening’ ambulance response times, figures uncovered by The Silhillian show.The B93 postcode was ranked 173rd out of 241 areas covered by West Midlands Ambulance Service where the most serious ‘category A’ calls are reached within eight minutes.
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Some 74 out of 122 calls were reached in this time, 60.7 per cent. The Government demands a minimum of 75 per cent.
The Hockley Heath area fared even worse with just 26.7 per cent of calls being reached within eight minutes, ranking the B94 postcode 224th.
The B91 Solihull town postcode, by comparison, performed far higher and is ranked 12th.
Here 410 out of 434 calls were reached within that time, 94.5 per cent.
It is thought performance is poorer in rural areas where ambulances have further to travel.
Overall, about half of all postcodes, 122, got to 75 per cent of calls within eight minutes, the time set by the Government.
See the full figures here.
Yet West Midlands Ambulance Service only has to meet a target for the whole region – meaning higher performing postcodes can mask low responses elsewhere.
The figures were provided to The Silhillian under the Freedom of Information Act and compiled responses for January to March of this year.
Last month it reported major gaps between Knowle and Dorridge and Solihull.
Meanwhile, managers are still struggling with long delays of patients waiting in ambulances outside Solihull Hospital.
This is often blamed on a lack of hospital staff to take the patient on.
Delays of more than an hour fell from December to January – but this is still five times higher than the West Midlands average, a report says.
More than half the number of patients taken to the hospital had to wait more than half an hour, the figures show. This is almost double to regional average.
Bosses have put in place an action plan to try and get waits down.
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