Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly. I thank Senator Mark Daly for giving me the opportunity to address this matter.

The National Ambulance Service, or NAS, is not a static service. The NAS deploys its resources dynamically and on a regional and national rather than a local basis. Dynamic deployment of ambulance resources ensures the nearest appropriate resource is sent to an incident. Senator Mark Daly may be aware that following a Labour Court decision the NAS has been implementing the phased replacement of on-call with on-duty rostering in the southern region. On-call rostering means that a crew is not at work but is summoned for a call-out. The average time from call-out to a vehicle leaving a station is more than 20 minutes. On-call rostering significantly affects response times, operational capacity, compliance with the Organisation of Working Time Act and health and safety for staff. An on-call rostering risk assessment has been carried out for inclusion on the NAS risk register and discussions are pending with the Health and Safety Authority on its concerns about the use of on-call services.

On-duty rostering means that highly trained paramedic crews are in their stations or vehicles to respond immediately to emergency calls. On-duty ambulances and response vehicles are deployed dynamically according to need and demand patterns rather than on the basis of station location and can be at optimal locations at any time based on predictive needs assessments. This allows greater flexibility and responsiveness and will produce better response times and an improved service for the people of Kerry. The NAS has been taking a number of other steps to improve response times, including a performance improvement action plan, more efficient rostering, an intermediate care service for non-emergency clinical transport, the national control centre reconfiguration project and a trial emergency aeromedical service.

On the specific query raised by the Senator, the NAS advises that the current on-call static service in Kerry will be replaced. The NAS is considering the most appropriate model for ambulance services in the Kerry region. Consultation will take place with a wide range of interests including the public, staff, general practitioners and other health care colleagues. Other factors to be considered include the results of the implementation of efficiency measures in other regions, new arrangements under public service agreements, activity and demographic analyses and developments in emergency aeromedical support. In line with the Labour Court recommendations, any new service model must be delivered from within existing resources, not limited to main towns and not based on the current static on-call structure. When the process is completed an appropriate model will emerge. The HSE is committed to briefing Members of the Oireachtas, public representatives generally and community leaders before implementing a final service model.