Nearly half of Englands ambulance trusts are taking too long to respond to life-threatening emergencies, a report said today.

Five of the nations 12 NHS ambulance trusts failed to meet their target of reaching 75 per cent of the most serious incidents within eight minutes in 2008-09, the NHS Information Centre found.

And only a third hit targets to arrive at the scene of 95 per cent of serious but not immediately life-threatening incidents within 19 minutes.

Read full article: Mail Online.