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A boss at a failing NHS ambulance trust is on indefinite paid leave costing taxpayers £8,000 a month after missing 999 targets.

Kevin Brown, 55, is not expected to go back to his £100,000-a-year job at the East of England service – one of the UK’s worst for response times.

It took an average nine and a half minutes to reach the most serious incidents in the past fortnight – the UK target is seven.

In less urgent but serious cases where a GP dials 999 over 10 per cent of patients waited up to 14 hours – the target is an hour.

Mr Brown joined as chief operating officer from London Ambulance two years ago.

(Image: Alamy Stock Photo)

The Trust serves six million people in East Anglia, Cambs, Essex, Beds and Herts.

It denies claims that delays last winter led to 20 deaths, but was handed an extra £2.6million to cope with an expected rise in demand this time round.

An insider said: “All that extra money has pretty much been squandered and he’s being made to carry the can.”

Interim chief executive Dorothy Hosein would not comment on Mr Brown but said figures due out this week “will not correlate the performance figures quoted. We thank our staff for their hard work.”