SOUTH West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt has today warned of a dramatic decline in the response rate to 999 calls in the county if the threat to Royal Surrey A&E becomes a reality. Mr Hunt fears that if the A&E Department at Royal Surrey was closed, ambulance crews would struggle to meet the Government target of 75% of ""Category A"" 999 calls being reached by an ambulance within 8 minutes. He said: “Surrey Ambulance Service has made significant improvements to their response times, but even now are only just meeting the target of 75% of Category A calls being reached in 8 minutes. “The additional time which patients would have to travel will increase dramatically if Royal Surrey closes it's A & E. Extra journey times would also mean ambulances would be tied up on single jobs for longer which could have an overall affect on the response times.”Last week, the Office of National Statistics published the performance data on each ambulance trust in England. Surrey Ambulance Trust just hit the Government target with 75.8% of all Category A calls being reached within 8 minutes.