Seriously ill or injured patients are waiting more than an hour and a half for a paramedic to turn up and help them.

Figures obtained by The Argus show a postcode lottery across Sussex for ambulance response times to Category B calls.

These are classed as patients with conditions which, though serious, are not immediately life-threatening.

This could be someone who has a suspected broken leg and has been assessed by a 999 controller as having no other urgent problems.

A paramedic is expected to reach at least 95% of these types of cases within 19 minutes of a 999 call being made.

However Freedom of Information figures show that over the past 18 months crews across the county are not turning up in time.

The worst areas are the Sussex Downs and Weald, which includes Lewes, Newhaven and Seaford, where under 85% of patients were reached within 19 minutes.

Other under performing areas included Mid Sussex and at just over 86%, Horsham and Chanctonbury, 87%, Bexhill and Rother, 88% and Crawley, 93%.

The best performing area is Brighton and Hove area, which has hit the 95% mark, along with Adur, Arun and Worthing.

The longest wait a patient had for treatment was in Mid Sussex and Horsham and Chanctonbuty where a paramedic did not turn up until after one hour and 37 minutes.

An ambulance service spokesman said: “There are a number of reasons why some responses to patients may take longer than we would like - for example adverse weather or high call demand for Category A patients with immediately life-threatening conditions.

“We will always send the nearest available response to patients with the most serious life-threatening conditions.

“Unfortunately this can sometimes impact on our Category B response performance.

“If there is a delay to a Category B call, we will always communicate with the caller and immediately escalate the priority of the call if the patient’s condition deteriorates.”