Paramedics are working “flat out” to meet high demand following an extremely busy weekend when ambulances across the South East were called out more than 2,100 times on Saturday.

The South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb), covering Surrey, Kent and Sussex, has pleaded with the public only to dial 999 in an emergency.

It made the same request over the Easter weekend when bosses said their paramedics were “exhausted”.

During the Easter break, paramedics were called to more than 9,500 emergency calls with 71 callers left on hold at one point, because there were few ambulances to cope with demand.

According to the trust, demand is about 13 per cent higher than expected at this time of year and its ambulances are taking longer to reach some calls.

A spokesman said: “Control room staff, ambulance crews and volunteer community first responder teams are working flat out to reach patients as quickly as possible and prioritising life-threatening emergencies.”

They added that the NHS as a whole is “very busy” and that Secamb is working with hospitals to reduce delays when handing patients over to accident and emergency departments.

Secamb paramedic and head of resilience Andy Cashman said: “The demand the service is facing is currently very high and it is taking us longer that we would like to respond to calls. Everyone is working extremely hard to reach patients who need our help as quickly as possible.”

The scandal-stricken trust was criticised after an independent review into its handling of calls transferred from NHS 111 during a trial scheme found “fundamental failures in governance”, after some emergency Red 2 responses were delayed, or “re-triaged”, allowing the stopwatch timing the trust’s response speed to be reset.

Investigators at Deloitte said this meant Secamb’s pilot scheme, authorised by chief executive Paul Sutton, who is now on a leave of absence, was operating outside national guidelines.

Their report was ordered by the watchdog Monitor. It said: “The delay to the clock start gave rise to a perception that the pilot was being done to enable to trust to meet reporting targets, rather than primarily for reasons of patient safety.”