James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Emergency response times vary significantly between regions, depending on, among other things, geography and the rural-urban mix. Despite the geographical diversity of the national ambulance service west region, improvements in emergency response times were achieved in 2012. I am informed by the national ambulance service that there has been an improvement in response times in the west from 2011 to 2012.

The national ambulance service has been addressing response times through a number of measures, including the intermediate care service, ICS, for non-emergency ambulance transport such as inter-hospital transfers, thus freeing emergency vehicles for emergency calls. Almost 40 ICS staff were appointed last year, with further resources to be deployed in 2013. Other measures include the trial emergency aeromedical service, EAS, which reduces transit times, particularly in the West, and allows emergency vehicles to remain within their regions, and the national control centre reconfiguration, with one national control system on two sites, in Tallaght and Ballyshannon, for improved dispatch and response times, with regional rather than local deployment and better use of first-responder schemes. These measures, together with more effective use of existing resources, for example with improved training and better deployment through more efficient rostering, will drive the improvement of response times in every region, including the West of Ireland. This will lead to better services and better outcomes when our citizens need these services.

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