Professor Cathal O'Donnell:

It is a good question. It is intuitive that if somebody needs an ambulance, the more quickly it gets to him or her, the better it will be for everyone. Within the breadth of 999 calls we get every day in both our organisations, there is a wide spectrum of acuity. If I trip and fall coming out of this meeting and sprain my ankle, or if I have a heart attack, clearly there is a difference between the two cases. As for quantifying the harm, it boils down to how long the delay is and what is wrong with the patient. That is why we stratify our response and why we triage calls. The Senator mentioned echo calls, which are the highest level of acuity we have-----