Suggestions that the chairman of South East Coast Ambulance Service has been ordered to leave his post have been denied.

Tony Thorne, who was appointed in 2011 and is head of the Board of Directors, was rumoured to have been told to go by health regulator Monitor.

But the Kent Messenger has been told that these claims are not true, and that Mr Thorne remains in his position.

It comes after the ambulance service came under fire after a controversial policy which led to some patients having to wait longer for ambulance.

The pilot, which was in place between December 2014 and February 2015, saw a delay before emergency NHS 111 calls were put through to the 999 number, meaning the service was able to meet its response time targets.

Claims were published in The Telegraph yesterday that at least 11 patient deaths had been linked to the policy.

This has been refuted by SECAmb.

Asked whether Mr Thorne and chief executive Paul Sutton, who authorised the policy, were stepping down a SECAmb spokesman said: "It is not appropriate for the trust to comment on the position of any individuals at this stage."

Today chief executive of independent health charity Patient Association, Katherine Murphy said there were important questions for senior trust staff to answer following the leaked report.

She said: “Everyone working in the NHS should be making the right decisions based on the best way to protect peoples’ lives and their health.

"The public especially expects that those in leadership positions are held accountable for their actions.

"Any decision that downgrades urgent category ambulance calls in order to massage performance targets is deplorable, and undermines the confidence that the public places in NHS leaders.

“If Mr Sutton chose to ignore colleagues’ concerns about the dangerous consequences of downgrading emergency ambulance calls, this suggests exceptionally poor decision making by someone in a key leadership role.

"Such conduct would fall far short of the standards that the public expects. There are also important questions for other senior staff in the Trust to answer.

“This issue goes back to 2014 and should have been resolved long ago, rather than being dragged out through leaked reports. The Trust should apologise and the NHS should ensure this never happens again.”