Ambulance staff in Wiltshire say they are at breaking point.

The concern was highlighted this week by a delay of more than an hour in sending an ambulance to a patient in Trowbridge on Monday.

By the time the ambulance, which had to come from Devizes, arrived, one hour and 14 minutes after the initial call, the patient had died.

A worker said of the incident: "It's absolutely disgusting. I think it's a build- up to the catastrophe that the trust is causing by cutting back crews.

"There was no resource to send to the patient and the crew did well to get from Devizes to Trowbridge in 18 minutes.

"Both the crew and the control room staff were upset and frustrated over it. Monday was a really busy day for us.

"During the day there was a job in Devizes and the nearest crew was coming back from the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

"It took another crew one-and-a-quarter hours to offload a patient at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon."

The initial call from Trowbridge to ambulance control was received at 4.16pm. The male patient's condition was categorised as Category B, which means the condition is non-life threatening and an ambulance response should reach the patient within 19 minutes.

But the target was not met and at 5.11pm the patient's family rang back to say his condition had deteriorated.

Ambulance control recategorised his condition as Category A, life threatening, where an ambulance should be sent within eight minutes.

The only available crew was in Devizes and they reached the patient at 5.29pm but there was nothing they could do.

It is understood the man died from a heart attack.

To further compound the family's distress the Great Western Ambulance Service despatched an ambulance crew to the home the next day by error.

Ambulance workers say there are not enough ambulances and crews on the road since new team working patterns were put in place.

The trust is putting more rapid response cars on the roads and has cut back on ambulances.

Phil Davis, Unison ambulance steward for Wiltshire said: "We are short of crews every day. Stations are pleading for people to come and work there to cover shifts.

"The introduction of team working has been an absolute disaster in terms of staffing. They put team working into place before they had the staff to make it work properly.

"The amalgamation of Wiltshire, Avon and Gloucestershire ambulance trusts is the worst thing that could have possibly happened to the people of Wiltshire."

A spokesman for the Great Western Ambulance Service said response times should improve and vacancies were in the process of being filled.

She said an internal investigation is being held into the Trowbridge case.