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

I thank the Senator for raising the issue. I am pleased to be able to outline to him the current developments in pre-hospital services, both nationally and in the Kerry area, in particular.

The national ambulance service, NAS, has undergone a huge programme of reform and modernisation in recent years, and it is important to acknowledge that progress is being made. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, recently officially opened the new national emergency operations centre in Tallaght, which allows the NAS to operate on a national rather than a regional basis. All calls for ambulance services for the Kerry region are now taken in Tallaght, and resources are dispatched from that centre.

Additional funding of €5.4 million has been provided this year to improve technology and clinical audit, and address gaps in service. Improved technology is facilitating better co-ordination of the national fleet, and that is improving control and dispatch performance.

It is important to note that the NAS is not a static service, but rather deploys its resources in a dynamic manner. This ensures that the nearest available and appropriate resource is sent to an incident. The NAS continuously evaluates its services in tandem with available resources and activity levels.

Kerry has 14 emergency ambulances and one rapid response vehicle. Seven crews operate on a 24 hours a day, seven days a week basis. The service operates from six ambulance stations in Tralee, Killarney, Listowel, Dingle, Kenmare and Caherciveen. Paramedics and advanced paramedics are deployed across the county, which ensures that practitioners with the appropriate skill level are located strategically to provide the best possible cover.

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. In the Kerry area, two intermediate care vehicles operate from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m, and one operates on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

We are expanding the number of community first responders, CFRs, particularly in more rural and sparsely populated areas. These are volunteer groups in the community who are registered and trained to a certified standard. We now have over 120 teams operating around the country. Four of these teams are operating in the Kerry region and are linked to the national control centre. On receipt of an emergency call in a geographic area served by a team, the NAS computer aided dispatch system will send out a text alert to the group and simultaneously deploy a NAS resource. CFR teams are dispatched to persons with cardiac and respiratory difficulties. The responder may get to the scene before the arrival of the ambulance crew and will apply their training, thus increasing the person's chance of survival. It is a great community initiative, which I fully endorse, and is a real case of helping thy neighbour. I have seen it in operation, and it is impressive.

We have also seen the establishment of the emergency aeromedical service, EAS, operated from Athlone by the Air Corps and staffed by NAS advanced paramedics. The EAS provides swift transfers of seriously ill or injured patients to appropriate hospitals. Over 1,050 missions have been completed since June 2012.

These are all significant achievements. However, the House can be assured that this Government intends to drive further improvements in our pre-hospital emergency care services, which will benefit the people of Kerry and those in the rest of the country.