A Norfolk MP has called on the board of the East of England Ambulance Service to be replaced, if the under-fire trust is found to be failing by the health regulator.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is set publish a report soon into the results of an unannounced inspection, which is anticipated to criticise the region's ambulance service for not meeting its response targets.

South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon has now urged the minister responsible for ambulance services to sack the board, if the report finds the NHS trust to be failing.

The Conservative MP told Earl Howe that the CQC had already briefed local MPs to say that the ambulance trust is failing patients when it comes to rural response times, paramedics in Rapid Response Vehicles are experiencing long waits on incidents for ambulance back-up, and are facing long turnaround delays at A&E departments. For the last ten months, the trust has failed to hit two key response times in Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

Mr Bacon added that he was 'greatly concerned' that more and more patients in rural East Anglia could no longer trust the ambulance service to arrive on time when they dial 999.

In a letter to the minister responsible for emergency and urgent care, he said: 'If the CQC's report rates the trust as non-compliant as expected, then this can not be allowed to pass without serious consequences. I therefore believe that the trust's board should be replaced by the Department of Health as soon as possible. Anything less than this would be met with incredulity by our constituents and would be unacceptable.'