MORE than a third of emergency ambulances arrived late last year, new figures reveal.

The Scottish Ambulance Service’s annual report said 34.5 per cent of call-outs to life-threatening incidents missed the eight-minute target in 2015-16.

The fall in timely responses from 72.2 to 65.5 per cent last year was partly blamed on ambulances being held up at busy hospital A&E departments.

Read more: A third of trauma patients wait an hour for A&E consultation

The service’s target is for at least 75 per cent to respond on time to Category A incidents, which are defined as “life threatening” and are “always prioritised” above other calls.

The service went backwards on three of its four key performance indicators (KPIs) dealing with NHS Scotland's first objective, “improving life expectancy”.

The number of cardiac arrest patients seen within eight minutes also fell last year, from 74.2 to 71 per cent, against a national target of 80 per cent.

This was blamed on “a general increase in demand and pressures on the wider system”, as well as a “significant increase in Category A activity” during the year.

The number of Category B incidents - defined as “serious, but not life threatening” - responded to within 19 minutes also fell, from 87.8 to 81.7 per cent, against a target of 95 per cent.

Read more: A third of trauma patients wait an hour for A&E consultation

Ambulances also took just 70.1 per cent of acute stroke patients to hospital within an hour, down on 72.8 per cent the previous year, and against a target of 80 per cent in 60 minutes.

Days lost to staff sickness rose from 7.1 to 7.6 per cent, compared to a 5 per cent target.

However there was a rise in the number of people stabilised after heart attacks before entering hospital, up from 33.9 to 39 per cent last year, against a target of at least 30 per cent.

The service is piloting a new telephone triage system so patients in most need are seen first and less urgent cases are screened by call handlers, with a report to ministers by 2017.

Tory health spokesman Donald Cameron claimed the pressure on the service was "jeopardising lives".

He said: “The SNP has been in charge of the ambulance service for almost a decade now, but across many indicators things have never been worse. We need to see an urgent plan from the Scottish Government about how it intends to address this situation.”

Read more: A third of trauma patients wait an hour for A&E consultation

Labour’s Anas Sarwar said ambulance staff were facing “an unbearable level of stress and pressure” under the SNP government.

He said: “Now we see that one in every three ambulances is late - Shona Robison needs to get a grip on the mounting problems in the NHS that have piled up on her watch."

LibDem Health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton added: “Performance against a range of key targets is getting worse, not better. It is time staff were given the support they need to save lives.”

Health Secretary Shona Robison said crews were saving more lives than ever, despite growing demands.

“The average response times for potentially life-threatening calls remains around 7.4 minutes. We have increased the Service’s budget by £11.4m this year, which will see it train an extra 200 paramedics as part of our commitment to training 1,000 more in the next five years. The funding ensures more clinical advisers and dispatch staff in control rooms.”

The Ambulance Service said Category A calls rose 4 per cent last year, or by 50 a day, and the time targets dated from 1974 and did not take into account recent medical advances.

“Our aim with the new clinical model is to dispatch the right resource first time to meet our patient’s clinical needs. We want to get to patients with life-threatening conditions faster.

“In other situations, we will send the right resource thanks to advances in clinical care.”