Over 500 patients had to wait at least an hour for ambulances this year

Ambulances took over an hour to arrive for high priority calls more than 500 times in the first six months of this year.

In some cases, delays of up to four hours were reported following calls to the National Ambulance Service (NAS).

However, the service did say there were no one-hour plus delays in the highest priority category of incidents in the first half of 2024.

A breakdown of calls that took more than 60 minutes to respond to showed that the highest number, or 77 separate emergencies, were in Cork.

Other counties with a high rate of lengthy response times were Wexford with 41, Tipperary with 35 and Kilkenny with 34.

Under the NAS system, around 48 per cent of calls are categorised as either PURPLE or RED where they are considered life-threatening or potentially life-threatening.

For the most serious ‘PURPLE’ calls, a target of responding within 19 minutes in 75 per cent of cases has been set.

During the first two quarters of this year, the NAS was just over target at 76…

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