MP STEVE Barclay today welcomed the resignation of the chairman of the East of England Ambulance Service Trust.

“There has been a clear failure in leadership at the trust,” said Mr Barclay, the MP for NE Cambs.

The MP also wanted assurances that there would be “transparency over what payments have been given to departing senior managers to ensure they are not paid for failure”.

It was announced this morning at the trust’s board meeting in Cambourne that Maria Ball has resigned from the role of chairman.

The troubled service has come under fire in recent times and just last week health watchdog the Care Quality Commission issued a damning report.

The commission found that the service was failing to deliver on “care and welfare of people who use the service”.

Mr Barclay said the failure of the trust “is now reflected in both chief executive and the chairman resigning

“I have for some time raised concerns both locally and in Parliament over excessive delays in ambulances responding to calls from my constituents.”

He said the issue had been highlighted by many times by these papers – citing the case of a footballer at Doddington with a broken leg left waiting for an ambulance but then told to wheel himself to hospital, a Chatteris constituent waiting two hours for an emergency ambulance, and in Ely an injured motor cyclist left lying on the ground for 90 minutes.

Mr Barclay said he had met other MPs from the eastern region “and I was surprised to discover issues of NE Cambs were shared much more widely.

“We now urgently need for a change programme to be delivered so that this issue is gripped”.

He added: “We also need transparency over what payments have been given to departing senior managers to ensure they are not paid for failure”.