AN MP has demanded more funding for ambulances in South Hampshire following Daily Echo reports about patients being let down by emergency services.

Sandra Gidley, Liberal Democrat MP for Romsey, told the House of Commons that the cases of an 85-year-old woman left waiting 70 minutes for an ambulance after suffering a suspected broken leg and a policeman taken to hospital by fire engine because no ambulance was available demonstrated the pressure the service was under.

Mrs Gidley, pictured, said: “There are always times when unusual demand is difficult to cover, but in an emergency a situation such as I have described is of concern.”

Mrs Gidley, a health spokeswoman for the Lib Dems, said ambulance response times varied throughout her constituency, with services in urban areas like Southampton arriving within eight minutes of calls where a patient’s life was threatened on 80 to 85 per cent of occasions, while in less populated areas such as Romsey town and Valley Park, ambulances never reached an emergency within that period of time.

The MP, who obtained the data using the Freedom of Information Act, told the Commons: “It is clear that some areas do not receive the service that they should. I had always suspected that my rural areas received a less than good service, but the results are much worse than I had anticipated.”

Mrs Gidley said the Government was partly to blame for an increase in the number of call-outs for ambulances because its decision to shift responsibility for out-of-hours care from GPs to primary care trusts about five years ago had led to confusion and difficulties getting hold of doctors at nights and weekends.