RURAL lives were being put at ‘unacceptable risk’ as ambulance response times in West Somerset fell ‘dangerously short’ of national targets, Exmoor farmer and campaigner James Wright said this week.

Mr Wright said NHS leaders, Government Ministers, and MPs should ‘act immediately to protect rural communities from further avoidable harm’.

And, after meeting local paramedics, he called for more support for local communities based around dedicated ‘rural patrols’, where ambulances were stationed and retained in rural areas, rather than routinely absorbed into urban response patterns.

Mr Wright said the current ambulance model drew vehicles away from areas such as Exmoor and West Somerset to support urban demand, leaving communities without adequate local cover for long periods of time.

He said data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed emergency calls in the Tiverton and Minehead constituency for incidents such as strokes and chest pains were seeing ambulance response times averaging more than 50 minutes, compared to an 18-minute national target.

Mr Wright, who chairs the Conservative South West Rural Forum, said these were cases where ‘minutes can make the difference between life and death’.

He said West Somerset residents were facing waits of nearly three times longer than the NHS standard.

Mr Wright said the figures showed how rural communities were being systematically failed.

He said: “This data confirms what local people have feared for some time.

“Despite the best efforts of frontline ambulance staff, the current system is putting rural lives at unacceptable risk.

“We cannot accept a situation where emergencies like strokes and chest pains in Tiverton and Minehead are responded to in nearly an hour, while urban centres receive cover within target times.”

Mr Wright said returning ambulance control to counties rather than regions would help to ensure local populations were served first and they were not continuously drawn away without urgent cause.