Stroke patients in Milton Keynes waiting more than an hour to reach hospital after calling 999

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which covers 11 CCGs in South Central , helped 864 patients who had an initial diagnosis of stroke.

Experts said the priority was to get the patient to a specialist stroke centre, even if that was further away than the nearest standard hospital.

After calling 999, patients had to wait on average an hour and eight minutes to get to an acute stroke centre in August.

The Milton Keynes Clinical Commissioning Group area is served by the South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.

The trust's ambulances, which cover 11 CCGs in South Central , helped 864 patients who had an initial diagnosis of stroke.

One in 10 had to wait an hour and 38 minutes to reach hospital.

A stroke happens when a blood vessel to the brain gets clogged or bursts, and cuts off blood and oxygen.

Nationally, patients waited on average an hour and 11 minutes to get to hospital.

Alexis Kolodziej, of the Stroke Association, said: "The faster a stroke patient can receive specialist treatment the more likely they will survive and recover.

"Evidence shows that patients get better treatment and have better outcomes when they can be taken by ambulance to a larger, comprehensive stroke centres of excellence.

"In most cases, it is better for patients to travel slightly further to reach these centres than to go to a closer hospital that doesn’t offer specialist and comprehensive stroke care."

Once at the stroke center, patients had to wait up to three hours and 18 minutes minutes for an X-ray scan.

This is crucial to determining the cause of the stroke and decide on the treatment.

Professor Nilesh Samani, medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Stroke is the third biggest killer in the UK and causes over 36,000 deaths each year.

"Pioneering treatments are increasingly available for people who have had a stroke, which have been proven to save lives and reduce disability.

"They are most effective, however, when patients are treated at an early stage, and this underlines the need for strokes to be treated as swiftly as possible. For emergency services, stroke should have the same priority as heart attacks."