An ambulance was called to an emergency at Homes Together residential and retirement home in Park Drive last Monday at 7pm. It took more than an hour to arrive and the patient was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at hospital.

Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Phil Willis this week demanded answers about the district's emergency services provision, prompting an immediate investigation by Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

He said the two ambulances on duty in Harrogate were in York and Scunthorpe, and he described the incident as an appalling state of affairs considering the nursing home is only one mile from Harrogate District Hospital.

He said: "For both Harrogate ambulances to be miles away from the town is unacceptable.

"We will never know if that lost hour would have saved my constituent but how can we have confidence in a system that allows for no ambulance cover in Harrogate?

"I have every sympathy with the ambulance drivers who do a sterling job. But they cannot be in two places at once."

Mr Willis said the woman had been taken ill earlier in the day and care home staff had called the doctor.

After her condition deteriorated throughout the day, they phoned for an ambulance around 7pm.

A Rapid Response Vehicle, manned by a paramedic who performs on-site preliminary checks to determine whether an ambulance is still necessary, arrived within 15 minutes, but the woman went into cardiac arrest at 7:30pm.

The ambulance did not arrive for another half an hour, despite a second call made by the paramedic.

Mr Willis asked Secretary of State for Health Alan Johnson during a House of Commons debate what was being done to ensure similar problems did not happen again. Mr Johnson said he hoped the incident was an exception to the normal rule, and he pledged to look into the circumstances of the case.

Mr Willis said ambulance cover needs to be investigated as part of the review into NHS services.

He added: "I am determined that the ambulance service must no longer be the Cinderella service of the NHS. People working in the ambulance service have told me that morale is at rock bottom.It needs greater resources and better management which will in turn lead to higher morale among those employed in the service."

Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Andrew Jones has also written to the Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service asking for a full enquiry to take place as a matter of urgency and also to the Mr Johnson demanding this matter is investigated.

Coun Jones said: "This incident is both an appalling level of service from a critical emergency service and a very sad human tragedy.

"Such a level of service is unacceptable.