§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what representations she has received and what data she has in her possession concerning delays in(a) reception of 999 calls at the headquarters of the South Yorkshire ambulance service, (b) the dispatch of emergency calls from that headquarters and (c) the arrival of ambulance at an emergency incident; and what were the comparative figures for (i) 24 months, (ii) 36 months and (iii) 48 months ago.
§ Mr. SackvilleNo recent representations have been received about the performance of the service.
Call logging equipment in use at service headquarters during the last 18 months has shown that on average, 999 calls coming into service control take approximately five seconds to be answered.
The latest activation and response time figures are given in the tables.
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Table 2 Response times 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 11991–92 Total number of emergency calls 57,580 58,842 64,863 64,073 Number where response within seven minutes 18,470 16,764 20,246 18,797 Percentage of calls where response within seven minutes 32.1 28.5 31.2 29.3 Number where response within 14 minutes 44,210 41,627 48,877 48,509 Percentage of calls where response within 14 minutes 76.8 70.7 75.4 75.7 1 Information supplied by South Yorkshire Ambulance Service: not validated centrally.