People in Bristol with heart attacks and strokes were left waiting an average of 1hr 9mins last year, making it one of the hardest hit areas of the country. This comes as ambulance workers in the GMB union vote in favour of strike action with the National Secretary saying that "something needs to change or the service as we know it will collapse".
The local areas with the longest average waiting times for an ambulance have been revealed thanks to a Freedom of Information request by the Liberal Democrats. In some areas patients are waiting three times as long for life-threatening calls but across the UK waiting times have increased overall.
Bristol has the sixth-worst response time in the country and the picture in other parts of the region are even worse. In South Gloucestershire people are waiting an average of 1hr 11mins and for North Somerset the ambulance waiting time for category two calls is 1hr 9mins on average.
