Ambulance crews and health figures provided witness statements at an inquest into the death of an Ipswich man who had to wait 90 minutes before being taken to hospital.

Suffolk Coroners' Court in Ipswich resumed the inquest into the death of Leon Norte-Clarke on Monday.

Mr Norte-Clarke, who was described by his family as an "intelligent and insightful, capable and ambitious" man, died shortly after taking medication at his home in Ipswich on June 29, 2022.

The 21-year-old had gone to his parents' room at about 4am that day telling them to call 999 after taking all of his prescribed medication.

His parents called the emergency services at 4.08am.

Leon Norte-Clarke sadly passed away on June 29, 2022Leon Norte-Clarke died on June 29, 2022 (Image: Family of Leon Norte-Clarke)

The court heard a witness statement from Alistair MacKay, lead operation manager for the East of England Ambulance NHS Trust.

In the statement, he said the ambulance service had received the call at 4.08am, with the first crew arriving on the scene at 4.56am to find Mr Norte-Clarke on the upstairs landing.

Wendy Harvey, a paramedic who was the first to see Leon that night, said that once she had seen Mr Norte-Clarke, she knew he was a very critically poorly patient and called for a 'Hot 1' backup from another crew, the most urgent of backup calls.

Mr MacKay was also asked to attend the house, which he did, and called for the fire service to come to help get him out of the house.

Due to Mr Norte-Clarke having seizures, it would have been unsafe to have removed him on a stretcher without specialist equipment and the removal of an upstairs window.

Mr Christopher Hewetson, patient safety specialist who works within the emergency operations sector, spoke at the inquest of the categories for response times.

Due to Mr Norte-Clarke's state at the time of the call to 999, with him not yet having seizures or fallen into a cardiac arrest, the phone call was classed as a category two call.

Category two calls have a response time on average of 18 minutes, with nine out of 10 patients being seen within 40 minutes, the court heard.

It took 38 minutes before the first ambulance crew arrived to care for Mr Norte-Clarke, and he was not taken to hospital until 6.30am.

He died a short while later.

The inquest continues at Suffolk Coroners' Court on Tuesday.