IPSWICH: I fear history will repeat itself, and another family will lose a child.

That is the stark warning from the mother of a man who lay dying in an Ipswich street, waiting 28 minutes for an ambulance from Bury St Edmunds to take him to hospital.

On August 27, 2005 David Halley-Frame suffered an asthma attack as he and friends walked in Upper Orwell Street, Ipswich. He died later that day in hospital.

Today his mum Diane Halley-Frame, of Kingsway, Ipswich is urging the East of England Ambulance Service to recruit more frontline paramedics and halt plans to cut the number of ambulances in their fleet from 276 to 138, as agreed by the board at their meeting in May.

“History will repeat itself,” said the 53-year-old. “Another family risk losing their loved one. Are they really going to wait for another person to lose their life?”

“It was like losing a part of me,” she added.

“Now I am watching his friends grow up, get married, have babies. It should be my Davey enjoying life too.

“The paramedics do a fantastic job, they just need more resources.”

Hayden Newton, chief executive of the ambulance service, said since the trust was formed in 2006 they have “invested tens of millions of pounds” in recruiting “hundreds more frontline staff and ambulances to better serve patients”.

He said: “We reject the allegation that patients are at risk and are working harder than ever before to ensure they get the best possible care.

“We have more resources to transport patients to hospital than ever before.

“The proposals to incorporate more rapid response vehicles, which can convey patients, will mean we can far better serve the community when less than half of Suffolk calls need hospital transportation but there is still a need to get to patients as quickly as possible.”

He said: “Double crewed ambulances can then be targeted to patients who need them.”