AN MP has demanded an investigation into why it took more than 90 minutes for an ambulance to attend a football match where a player was lying injured on the pitch.

Kirkley and Pakefield centre forward Kyle Baker was left in agony by a tackle during the first half of a Ridgeons Premier League match against Clacton last Saturday and was forced to leave the field on a stretcher.

But when the club dialled 999, it took more than an hour and a half for an ambulance to arrive.

Club officials were initially told to take the striker to the A&E department at the James Paget University Hospital, but when his condition appeared to worsen, a second call was made and this eventually led to an ambulance being sent to the scene.

Waveney MP Peter Aldous, who sponsored the match and was among the spectators at Walmer Road, Pakefield, said he was concerned by how long it took for an ambulance to arrive. However, an East of England Ambulance Service spokeswoman said its response was “absolutely appropriate”. Although it was initially thought Mr Baker had a broken his leg, it later emerged he had suffered ankle ligament damage.

Mr Aldous said: “He was in extreme pain and clearly should have got to the hospital much, much quicker. It took an hour or so for the ambulance to get there which really I think in the circumstances, and with the nature of the injury, was unacceptable. I therefore have written to Hayden Newton, CEO of the East of England Ambulance Service, asking for an investigation as to why this was the case.”

Kirkley and Pakefield club secretary Barrie Atkins said it took 70 minutes for the ambulance to reach Mr Baker – and claimed the club had seen other incidents where injured players had waited a long time for an ambulance.

During the first phone call to the ambulance service at 3.39pm, a member of its clinical support desk told the club to drive the injured player to the James Paget because the injury was not deemed “serious”. However, at 4.44pm, a second call was made because Mr Baker appeared to be going in and out of consciousness.

The duty operations manager arrived within four minutes of this and, after he had assessed Mr Baker, he rang for an ambulance that turned up 10 minutes later at 5.14pm – more than an hour and a half after the club’s first call. Mr Baker is now back home in Lowestoft recovering, but he is unlikely to play football again for four to six weeks.

A spokeswoman for the ambulance service said: “999 is for critical and life-threatening calls. A non-serious leg injury means a patient can be driven to hospital without the need to potentially divert an ambulance away from someone in a life-threatening condition. Less serious calls will be referred to our clinical support desk for thorough triage by a nurse to ensure ambulances are not diverted unnecessarily from critical patients.”