Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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472. To ask the Minister for Health if he is satisfied that an 18 minutes 59 seconds response time is adequate for dealing with clinical status 1 ECHO calls which involve life-threatening emergencies of cardiac or respiratory origin or clinical status 1 DELTA calls involve life-threatening emergencies of other than cardiac or respiratory origin. [10813/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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My Department is working with the HSE to ensure that the National Ambulance Service (NAS) is reconfigured to ensure a clinically driven, nationally co-ordinated system, supported by improved technology. The NAS is committed to improving the care provided to patients as well as providing faster access to care.

In many countries, response time indicators are used as one means to evaluate the quality of the services delivered by pre-hospital emergency care providers. Such indicators provide a valuable source of information when used in conjunction with clinical indicators that focus on patient outcomes. The Deputy may wish to note that while HIQA has recommended that a patient carrying vehicle should respond to critical incidents within a maximum of 18 minutes and 59 seconds, the Authority recommends that in the first instance, such incidents are responded to by a first responder, which includes advanced paramedics, paramedics, or cardiac first responders, within 7 minutes and 59 seconds or less.

In developing response time indicators, HIQA conducted a comprehensive review of international practices in relation to pre-hospital emergency care services and associated key performance indicators. The Authority also engaged with key stakeholders, including an expert advisory group on pre-hospital emergency care, to ensure that the initiative was informed by current work, expertise and views from both a national and international perspective.

However, it is important to recognise that sole reliance on response times does not provide a comprehensive picture of modern ambulance service performance. For this reason, many jurisdictions are now moving to assess performance against clinical outcome indicators which better reflect the work of a modern ambulance service. In that regard, the NAS is developing clinical outcome indicators, the first of which - on return of spontaneous circulation for certain types of heart attack - will be introduced in 2014.

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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473. To ask the Minister for Health if he will report on the progress of Health Information and Quality Authority, as part of its business plan for 2013; if he will review the governance and management arrangements of pre-hospital emergency care services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10814/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I am aware that concerns have been raised recently concerning ambulance service response times. In the circumstances, I have asked HIQA to bring forward its planned review of pre-hospital emergency care. HIQA is in the process of designing an Assessment Framework against the National Standards for Safer Better Healthcare and will apply the Authority’s Monitoring Approach to undertake the review as part of its assurance programme on the quality and safety of healthcare service provision against national standards. The Authority will review the governance arrangements of pre-hospital emergency care services to ensure the timely assessment, diagnosis, initial management and transport of an acutely ill patient to an appropriate healthcare facility.

I should also explain that the National Ambulance Service will undertake its own capacity review, to determine current and future service delivery needs. This process will examine a number of areas, including staff numbers and skill mix, as well as resource distribution.