Ambulances are reaching Enfield residents faster than ever before.

London Ambulance Service figures show this year has been the best year ever, having reached 47,000 of their most serious calls within eight minutes — despite the considerable rise in demand for total emergency calls, which amounted to 1.4 million during 2008/09.

Enfield crews reached 79 per cent of the patients assessed as the most life-threatening situations in less than eight minutes, exceeding the Government's national performance target of 75 per cent.

This means 1,925 more patients in Enfield were reached within eight minutes than the previous year, despite a rise in demand of 3.7 per cent.

Chase Farm ambulance operations manager Paul Ward said: “Our staff have done a terrific job this year and we have reached more patients more quickly than ever before despite demand upon our service going up.

“We have performed exceptionally well in what has been a very difficult year. The heavy snow was just one of the challenges we faced.”

The clock that measures the response time of the ambulance service used to start when the operator had established the caller's contact details, the patient's location and the nature of the call.

But since April 2008, the clock begins as soon as the caller is connected to the control room, meaning that the recorded response times start approximately two minutes earlier, but the target time of eight minutes remains the same.

London Ambulance Service received 1,423,496 emergency calls this year, compared to 1,389,660 in 2007/8.

It also responded to 241,517 life-threatening calls within eight minutes, compared to 194,350 the previous year.

Mr Ward added: “Staff have worked incredibly hard to provide high-quality care to patients and we are looking to build on our success with the recruitment of 400 extra frontline staff across London this year so we can provide an even better service.

"However, we would continue to ask residents in Enfield to use their ambulance service wisely by only calling 999 in an emergency."

John Jewson, a retired Enfield paramedic, said: "There has been a good push by the London Ambulance Service. The biggest problem however is that with Chase Farm Hospital [accident and emergency department] closing, it will take ambulances longer to take patients to other hospitals.

"Unless the primary care trust or the Government, Enfield will be left in a black hole and all the good work that the ambulance crews are doing will go downhill."

Patients who are not seriously ill or injured should consider other ways of getting help, such as looking after themselves at home, calling NHS Direct on 0845 4647 or by taking themselves to the nearest hospital.