THE local ambulance service is one of the best in the country for responding to life-threatening emergency calls.

Government figures have revealed that Greater Manchester Ambulance Service attended 82.5 per cent of Category A calls, the most serious type of emergency, within the official eight minute target.

Only Staffordshire Ambulance NHS Trust, which is classed as a rural service, attended a higher percentage of Category A calls within the target time.

GMAS topped the table of urban services, which includes trusts in London, West Yorkshire and Merseyside, and its performance is well above the Government's 75 per cent target for Category A responses.

Its response to calls from GPs and health professionals -- with 95.6 per cent of call outs arriving not more than 15 minutes later -- compared well with all other ambulance trusts as the third highest in the country.

GMAS's table-topping performance came despite an increase in calls received and journeys made by staff -- both up by about 8 per cent -- making it one of the busiest ambulance services in the country.

Almost 1.1 million patient journeys were made in 2003/4 with 217,000 of those being emergencies. A total of 315,000 emergency calls were made.

GMAS chief executive John Burnside said: "I'm delighted at these figures published by the Government, which underline how hard our staff work."