§ Mr. Dixonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many of the genuine 999 calls received by the northern region ambulance service in 1984 were dealt with within his Department's recommended emergency response time standard (Orcom standards).
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeWe do not collect this detailed local information centrally.
§ Mr. Dixonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services (1) how many ambulance stations there were in
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1982–83 1983–84 Ambulances Ambulance Stations Ambulances Ambulance Stations Northern Region* 546 66 †546 66 Northumbria Ambulance Service 253 29 ‡258 29 Projections for future years are the responsibility of the relevant managing health authorities. * Including Northumbria Ambulance Service † Including 334 emergency ambulances ‡ Including 211 emergency ambulances difficult to compile and results must be interpreted with a good deal of caution. For example, it is difficult to derive comparable estimates of average earnings between member states of the European community. Published data for average earnings with which pensions are compared may relate to different months, refer to work forces of different compositions, and the definition of gross earnings varies between countries. Moreover a number of technical factors, such as the method of revaluing past earnings, may substantially affect calculations. Additionally, in order to get a fair comparison it is necessary to have information on many other factors, such as the coverage of occupational pension schemes, which play widely differing roles from country to country, protection for women with limited work records, the level of social assistance for those with inadequate contributory pension rights and the effect on pensioners of housing, pharmaceutical and medical treatment costs.
Subject to these qualifications, 'the latest information readily available is set out in the table. It is based on earnings information obtained through official contacts and state pensions information derived from "Tables of Social Benefits Systems in the member states of the European countries, Portugal and Spain, the position at 1 January 1984" (a copy of which is in the Library).
the northern region ambulance service in December 1984; and what are the projected figures for 1985, 1986 and 1987;
(2) how many emergency ambulance vehicles were available in the northern region ambulance service in (a) December 1983 and (b) December 1984.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeWe do not collect centrally information on the numbers of ambulances and ambulance stations. The following figures are derived from statistics compiled by the York district health authority.
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§ Mr. Dixonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many ambulance men were in the employ of the northern region ambulance service in (a) December 1983 and (b) December 1984.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeThe latest available information, in the form requested by the hon. Member, is at 30 September 1983. At that time, 1,279 ambulance men/women were employed within the northern region and of these, 570 were employed by the Northumbria ambulance service. Later figures are not yet available to this level of detail.
The total numbers of staff employed by the ambulance services (that is, including ambulance officers and control assistants) within the Northern region were as follows:
Date Number September 1983 1,480 December 1983 1,470 March 1984 1,450 June 1,430 September 1984* 1,420 *Provisional All these figures are whole time equivalents.