Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service has proved itself one of the best in the country.

National performance statistics published on Tuesday ranked the service among only nine to have reached both life-threatening and non life-threatening emergency calls within a required time.

Of the 32 English NHS Ambulance Services included, 14 trusts met the required response standard for attendance for life-threatening calls within eight minutes and only nine met both that standard and the standard for non life-threatening calls of attendance within 19 minutes.

In 76.7 per cent of cases the Hereford and Worc-ester service responded within eight minutes for the first target, and achieved a 96.7 per cent response time to the second.

The ranking is an improvement after the service achieved only a moderate response rate to emergency call-outs in tests last year (2000-2001).