In 95 per cent of cases, they must reach the scene within 14 minutes in urban areas and 19 minutes in rural ones.However, the service has been dogged by controversy. Mr Sackville said that the initiative would mean “there can now be new hope for heart attack victims whose survival depends on immediate skilled help”.Under the Patient’s Charter, ambulances must reach the scene within eight minutes of the emergency call in 50 per cent of cases. Tom Sackville, Under-Secretary of State for Health, yesterday announced an investigation into emergency calls to see if ambulances can get to critically ill patients more quickly.
At present, outside major disasters, all calls are answered on the basis that ambulances are obliged to respond equally to every 999 call regardless of its urgency. Heart attack victims may get an ambulance faster instead of waiting in the “first-come first-served” queue, as a result of a review of 999 calls. He claimed that they were trying to break-in and reportedly gave them a “good hiding”.Police are treating the attack as attempted murder.. Andy has told me from hospital that he doesn’t know who the masked men were.”He is such a placid and happy-go-lucky person, he’s not one to get caught up in trouble.”About a month ago, Mr King had got involved in an argument with some young men who were trying to break into a vehicle.In a separate incident, he warned off a gang who were climbing on his conservatory roof. He was writhing on the ground in agony and screaming, `God help me, God help me’ Nobody deserves this I can’t imagine which maniacs could have done this.

He tried to fight off his assailants but was forced into a nearby shed where they poured petrol over him and set him alight. A passing lorry driver and a taxi driver covered him with a rug and used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames.He was taken to the special burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, with injuries to his lower body. His condition has stabilised and police were able to interview him yesterday afternoon. Police described Mr King as a respectable, well-liked family man.His wife Rachel, 24, heard her husband’s screams as she watched television with their baby Joshua, daughters Chan-telle, six, Charmaine, four, and son Christopher, nine.She said: “I heard terrible screams and I rushed out to see Andrew lying on the ground with his clothes on fire. He was described as comfortable in hospital last night after suffering 40 per cent burns.
Police disclosed yesterday that Mr King had recently been involved in two incidents involving young men after which someone pushed a roll of paper filled with lighted matches through his letter box.Mr King was attacked on Tuesday evening by two to four hooded men who had been waiting for about half an hour outside his house. Andrew King, 30, an unemployed carpet-fitter, was set upon by masked men outside his home in Shay Lane, Ovenden, Halifax, West Yorkshire, as he returned from buying fish and chips. A father of four who was soaked in petrol and set alight may have been the victim of a revenge attack after he stopped a gang of young men breaking into a car and his home.

He expected them to be able to decide an extra 7,000 cases a year, about 31,000 a year, gradually clearing the backlog and reducing the time it takes to process cases.. As numbers of applications have grown so has the percentage of rejections – currently standing at about 80 per cent. Announcing the moves yesterday, Mr Howard said: “It is not in the interests of genuine asylum-seekers for the system to be overloaded with applications from people whose real motives have nothing to do with a well-founded fear of persecution.”He said 150 staff would be added to the 500 asylum caseworkers on top of the appointment of more appeal adjudicators. At any one time about 600 asylum-seekers will be in jails or detention centres. In Britain there were 4,389 application in 1985, rising to 32,830 last year – mainly from people fleeing Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Ghana.The backlog, which last year stood at about 48,000, has grown to crisis levels. Average cases are taking about seven months, with appeals taking many months more – although some have waited years for a ruling.