ONE of the region’s ambulance services met tough new standards to reach emergency callouts in eight minutes last year, despite a surge in the number of calls.

The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) responded to 75.7 per cent of emergency and urgent 999 calls in 2008-9 within the time, just ahead of the target of 75 per cent.

It came despite a rule change that meant the time began the moment the call was taken. In previous years, the time taken to respond to emergency calls had been measured from the moment the control room had the caller’s details.

The Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS), however, fell short of the new standard, reaching emergencies in only 69.4 per cent of callouts.

Both services recorded a large rise in calls.

NHS figures showed that between April last year and March this year, the NEAS took a record 405,000 emergency and urgent calls.

The NEAS was the best-performing of all 12 English ambulance trusts, with a back-up ambulance getting to the scene of a life-threatening incident within 19 minutes in 99 per cent of cases.

The national target is 95 per cent.

In many cases, the first to arrive is a paramedic in a car.

In total, 268,000 emergency patients in the North-East were taken to hospital by the NEAS, which also carried out nearly 1.1 million patient journeys for outpatient and clinic appointments.

The YAS’s record on getting to emergency calls in eight minutes fell steeply compared to the previous year’s achievement of 73.5 per cent.

However, the YAS slightly exceeded the national target of getting an ambulance to the scene of an emergency within 19 minutes in 96.1 per cent of callouts.

Officials say they are now meeting the eight-minute target in about 76 per cent of cases.

Using the old way of measuring calls, YAS reached the scene in eight minutes in 79.2 per cent of callouts last year.