Ambulance service on critical list

An external review team who spent a week with the service in September discovered sick patients were waiting up to six hours to be taken to hospital, staff morale was low, and dirty run-down vehicles without MoTs were used on the roads.

Hampshire Ambulance Service scores the worst possible rating in five out of seven categories in this latest review.

But today the chief executive of the trust, Richard Mawson, refused to resign after the damning report revealed a catalogue of problems.

He said he alone was not responsible for its difficulties and claimed many improvements had been made since September.

A team from the Commission for Health Improvement spoke to ambulance workers, managers, GPs and patients to judge the standard of the current service.

They found praise for paramedics' caring approach to patients and a new electronic system that allows health staff access to patient information out-of-hours was applauded but largely the service was slammed.