Rachel Stonehouse speaks to the family of one man who died after waiting nearly 11 hours for an ambulance and the wife who desperately tried to keep her husband alive after an ambulance failed to turn up on time.

She goes out on shift with hard pressed paramedics and sees the steps which are being taken to try to reduce delays in handing over patients at hospital - blamed as one of the main factors behind poor response times.

In August alone, 138,000 hours were lost to handover delays in England. That equates to nearly 150 patients who could not be attended by an ambulance every hour of every day in that month.

The government says it is committed to easing pressure on the ambulance service - by discharging more patients in hospitals, increasing the number of 999 call handlers and creating more beds.

Reporter: Rachel Stonehouse

Producer: Paul Grant

Research: Scott Hesketh

Journalism Assistant: Tim Fernley

Technical Producer: Craig Boardman

Editor: Carl Johnston