THE East of England Ambulance Service Trust has not met any of its emergency response targets in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire since last April.

In every month of this financial year they failed to reach their eight-minute and 19-minute targets for responding to category A patients – those in a life-threatening condition.

Over 10 months from April 2012 to January 2013, the trust failed to meet its target of responding to 95 per cent of calls within 19 minutes and 75 per cent of calls within eight minutes in the two counties.

Health Minister Norman Lamb said: “So many assurances I have been given have not been met.

“The sickness absence is the highest of any ambulance trust in the country. It is related to levels of morale and shows the pressure they are under.”

The report will go before the service’s board tomorrow.

A spokesman for the service said: “The ambulance service recognises the need to improve its performance against time targets and is implementing a number of measures to do so, including 200 new frontline recruits and 15 extra ambulances,

“We will work better with hospitals to tackle handover delays, establish more effective rotas and use special cars to treat patients at home when they may not need to go to hospital.”