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

At the outset I would like to thank the Deputies for raising this issue and providing me with the opportunity to reaffirm to the House this Government's commitment to the development of our ambulance service. I will deal with some of the points raised. In recent years we have made a very significant investment in the ambulance fleet, in new technology and in our workforce. Indeed, in 2014 an additional €3.6 million and 43 staff have been provided to the National Ambulance Service in the HSE service plan. A major reform programme is now under way to reconfigure pre-hospital care services in Ireland. This reform programme will ensure a clinically driven, nationally co-ordinated system, supported by improved technology. Our aim is to provide a service that is safe, high quality, timely and patient centred, with at all times the outcome for patients at its core.

First, however, let me address the issue of response times. There have been a number of media reports recently regarding delayed responses, and I want to take the opportunity to confirm that responding to emergency calls within target is a key objective of the National Ambulance Service. It is acknowledged, however, that response times around the country vary, based on a number of factors including geographic and demographic challenges, as in the west, which was referred to by a number of Deputies; road networks; the use of emergency ambulances for inter-hospital transfers; and hospital hand-over times.

HIQA has set emergency response time targets and these have been implemented by the National Ambulance Service on a phased basis since 2011, in tandem with planned service improvements. In the case of calls classified as Echo, which are life threatening cardiac or respiratory calls, the 2013 target set by the HSE was that 70% of such calls should have a patient-carrying vehicle on scene within 19 minutes. In the case of Delta calls, which are calls for life threatening conditions other than cardiac or respiratory, the target was 68%. Notwithstanding the fact that the volume of emergency calls increased last year by, from memory, some 1,000 a month, national responses for Echo calls were less than 1% below the target of 70%, with some regions performing as high as 79%. For Delta calls, national performance was just under 4% less than the target of 68%. Therefore, it is not true to say that, in the case of serious illness, only a third of calls are met within the target time, as it is over two thirds. I would also point out that while the National Ambulance Service did not reach its targets in 2013, it responded to more calls within the target time than in 2012. If the volume of calls had remained constant, there would have been an even more significant improvement in response times.

I have to point out to the Deputies opposite that in their term of 14 years in government, they never bothered to mention response times, let alone measure which ambulances were in County Mayo or outside it at any given moment.

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