TIME is critical during the treatment of a heart attack. Most deaths result from an abnormal heart rhythm during delays in reaching the hospital and a stopped heartbeat must be restarted immediately by cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The longer the time from the onset of a heart attack to re-establishing blood flow to the heart, the more permanent damage can occur.

In emergency service parlance that means a Red 1 call is required in response to a 999 call, but yet again North Yorkshire ambulance service is failing to meet its nationally set 75 per cent goal of getting to patients in eight minutes.

Even more worryingly, this figure fluctuates; in July it was 67.6 per cent, while in August it fell to 65.7 per cent. The Vale of York Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has vowed to improve ambulance response times, but it does so every time the target has been missed, and in the meantime we learn that in June just 58.8 per cent of patients were reached within this critical time.

Dr Shaun O’Connell admits that in meeting these response times the CCG has ‘’not been doing well for a long time,’ and insists there is a recovery plan in place to achieve the target by December.

But what baffles us is that in April, Red 1 response times sat at 76.1 per cent, and ten years ago the service answered 77.1 per cent of calls in eight minutes, which was the sixth-best performance of 23 rural services nationally.

North Yorkshire may be England’s largest county but these figures show the target can be met. And with lives at stake it is vital that they are.