Ms Laverne McGuinness:

Deputy Ó Caoláin asked about the first responder and response times, as well as those for patient-carrying vehicles. First responder response time is seven minutes and 59 seconds. The target for ECHO and DELTA calls for patient-carrying vehicles is 18 minutes and 59 seconds. A first responder would be a member of the community who is trained to go to the scene.

The target set for turnaround times at accident and emergency departments is 20 minutes and goes to 30 minutes. This is monitored, and I accept that in some cases there are significant backlogs. A revision of the protocol has been carried out by Dr. Cathal O'Donnell and Mr. Martin Dunne, and this will be put in place nationally. It will have red, amber and green levels, which will correspond to 30 minutes, 40 minutes or an hour, respectively. Sometimes it can be elevated to a certain level because there might be problems in the accident and emergency department itself. Another member inquired if this would be assisted if there were another patient trolley there. However, we have to hand the patient to the clinician, so it is a little more than just having the trolley released.

As for the reason for the increase of 1,000 call-outs per month, there has been an increase in the population, with demographic changes. There is no medical evidence as to why this is the case. Dr. O’Donnell might comment on it.