THE ambulance service may be unable to cope with a shake-up of stroke services designed to save 123 lives a year in Essex, councillors have warned.

Essex Stroke Review Board is to recommend Southend, Colchester and Mid-Essex hospitals are upgraded to include “hyper-acute” stroke units by November in an effort to boost survival rates.

Southend councillors have warned the under-fire ambulance service’s failings will hamper efforts to cut the proportion of patients who die after a stroke from 17 to 12 per cent.

Conservative Ian Roberston, whose wife Ann died after suffering bleeding in the brain three years ago, Labour councillor Anne Jones and Independent councillor Ron Woodley said ambulances may arrive too late and paramedics fail to recognise a stroke