Lives put at risk in Meon Valley

10.17.59am GMT Tue 26th Feb 2008

People in Meon Valley have been put at risk by Government incompetence

People across Hampshire have been let down by ambulance services and lives could be at risk, according to Prospective Lib Dem MP for Meon Valley Liz Leffman.

Performance results for Hampshire's ambulance service in 2005-06 showed that only 65.01 per cent of emergency ambulances arrived within the required eight-minute time limit, placing it eleventh in a table of the 20 worst Trusts in Britain.

"In spite of Government promises that compressing ambulance services would mean better response times, people living in rural areas including large parts of Meon Valley have been put in a precarious position in the past few years," Liz said.

"Across Britain we have seen performance results showing that three-quarters of ambulances on emergency calls took more than eight minutes to arrive in 2005-06."

Liz added: "Much of Meon Valley is a very vulnerable because road access is so poor. Rural roads have not been well maintained, and the main roads are often very congested.

"Government incompetence in managing the health service, and lack of funds for maintaining infrastructure have combined to put people's lives at risk and this is unacceptable."

NOTES:

The performance figures for 2005-06 were disclosed using the Freedom of Information Act and were revealed by a national newspaper on February 24th 2008.