For information on paramedics released to ITV1's Tonight with Trevor McDonald see the related internet links below

PATIENTS are dying because low-skilled helpers are being sent out to handle life-threatening 999 calls, ambulance whistleblowers have warned.

Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show that in some areas of the country only 35% of ambulance service staff are fully trained paramedics.

Ambulance staff say pressure to meet the government’s eight-minute target for responding to life-threatening calls has resulted in “technicians” being sent instead.

Jonathan Fox of the Association of Professional Ambulance Personnel said: “We have seen patients suffer or even die as a result of not having access to a paramedic.

“It [seems as if it] is almost more acceptable for a person to die when an ambulance gets there within the eight-minute window than for us to get there outside of the eight-minute window and have somebody survive.”

A patient’s chance of being treated by a paramedic depends on where they live. In Wales and the West Midlands, 61% of ambulance staff are paramedics. In Yorkshire 48% of staff are paramedics and the figure drops to 35% in London.

Paramedics can administer more medicines, including clot-busting drugs to heart attack victims and injections of Valium to end epileptic fits. They can also insert tubes into the windpipe to aid breathing.

In a case to be featured on the ITV1 show Tonight With Trevor McDonald tomorrow at 8pm, 15 year-old Kayleigh Macilwraith-Christie, from London, died last July after an epileptic fit of almost 50 minutes.

A technician arrived in a fast-response car within eight minutes of a 999 call, but he could not administer the drugs she needed. An ambulance that arrived 24 minutes later was staffed by another technician and two trainee technicians. They were also unable to administer the drugs. She was taken to hospital in the ambulance but died a few minutes after arrival.

A paramedic at Islington ambulance station in north London, which responded to the 999 call, wrote a letter of complaint to the chief executive of the London Ambulance Service (LAS).

The letter said: “Perversely, this call will be deemed a success for the service as a fast-response unit attended within eight minutes.”

The LAS said there was no way of knowing if the presence of a paramedic would have saved Kayleigh’s life.

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