Mr. Robert Morton:

They are trained in house. It is an international standard. It is internationally accredited and examined. In fact, NAS is one of only ten centres worldwide to have that international accreditation. The service operates to a very high standard.

As I said, there is clinical oversight of everything we do. There is also secondary triage if necessary by clinicians, including doctors, nurses and specialist paramedics. If a call is triaged and the caller rings back and the condition changes – we always encourage people to advise at the end of every call that if there is any change to please ring us back – we re-question or re-interrogate the caller to determine if any changes have happened and then re-prioritise and re-categorise the call. That is a patient safety activity to make sure that happens.

Inevitably, if there is no crew available to respond then there is a delay. The priority is elevated based on the information given when someone calls back. We do not ring back callers to tell them there is a delay. I take the Deputy's point. It is something that is being debated at length.