Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and I am pleased to be able to outline some of the current developments in pre-hospital service in the region. The National Ambulance Service is working to ensure the provision of high quality and timely emergency pre-hospital care services, using all available resources as efficiently and effectively as possible. As with any pre-hospital service, development and modernisation is an ongoing process as technology and clinical standards change. A significant reform programme is under way and additional funding of €3.6 million and 43 staff have been provided in the 2014 national service plan. It is important to acknowledge that progress is being made. The single national control system due for completion in 2015 will improve our control and dispatch performance. We are continuing to develop the intermediate care service, ICS, which transports patients between facilities, allowing emergency vehicles to focus on emergency calls. The ICS now carries three quarters of the non-emergency workload. We are also moving to more efficient on-duty rostering and to develop a national rostering system. I gather this is what the Deputy was referring to in respect of the "Prime Time" programme.

The emergency aeromedical service is operated from Athlone by the Air Corps and staffed by National Ambulance Service advanced paramedics. The EAS provides swift transfers of seriously ill or injured patients to appropriate hospitals. I fully accept that we need to drive further improvement; no one is denying that. Two national reviews are under way for a better service for patients. This country is difficult to compare with other areas because our geographic spread is different.

The Health Information and Quality Authority's governance review is examining how the NAS can develop and benchmark its services with modern outcome and indicator data. The NAS has commissioned an independent capacity review to determine current and future service needs. Among the areas being examined are staff numbers and skill mix as well as resource locations. Given its rural nature and road network, the western area provides a challenge for targeted response times for pre-hospital emergency care. The NAS recognises this and has undertaken specific measures to meet this challenge. The ICS has been rolled out in the west, including at Castlebar, Sligo and Galway. Almost 50 intermediate care operatives are now in place in the west.

There have been over 700 EAS completed missions since June 2012. One third of these have been ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction heart attacks, allowing these patients to be treated in a specialist setting within 90 minutes of diagnosis. Most of these occurred in west and northwest. I know this to be true because it happened to a friend of mine recently. This development allows ambulance crews to remain in their areas in the west, ready to respond to any other emergency calls. Additional advanced paramedics have been trained throughout the west, with the objective that each station will have an AP and to ensure the spread of APs throughout the region. Castlebar control will be integrated into Ballyshannon in order that crews can be dispatched throughout the region more efficiently and deployed across regional boundaries, as required.

The NAS is moving towards a more dynamic and tactical model of service delivery. The current model, where ambulances remain at a single station, will change to a model in which they are deployed from a central location and move to several sites during a shift rather than remaining at a single point until required. This will ensure greater geographical cover as well as improved response times and patient outcomes. I am confident that these reforms and reviews will lead to improvements in pre-hospital emergency care services to the benefit of people living in the west. Having said that, I agree with the Deputy that there is more to be done.

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