§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the target in the patients charter for ambulances to reach patients in an emergency; what is the latest information she has on the percentage success in meeting this target for each district health authority and regional health authority; and what action is being taken nationally to meet the target.
§ Mr. SackvilleThe benchmark emergency performance targets in the patients charter are 19 minutes and 14 minutes for rural and urban areas respectively.
Revised recommendations on emergency response times were issued by the national health service management executive in November 1990 as part of a package of good practice guidance for the modern ambulance service. The new standards were formally promulgated in "Health Service Guidance" issued in December 1991.
The latest available figures are given in the tables. These refer to the former metropolitan and non-metropolitan services and to emergency response targets of 14 and 20 minutes.
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Table 1 Patient transport services 1990–91 Quality of service Emergency calls: Response times: Metropolitan authorities Percentage of calls where response within Ambulance authority 7 minutes (target 50 per cent.) 14 minutes (target 95 per cent.) Northumbria Metropolitan 53.0 91.5 West Yorkshire Metropolitan 34.4 87.5 South Yorkshire Metropolitan 31.2 75.4 London Ambulance Service 11.0 73.7 West Midlands Metropolitan 51.9 88.1 Mersey Metropolitan 59.6 96.5 Greater Manchester Metropolitan 46.6 94.6 Notes:
1. The response time of an ambulance is defined as the time elapsed from the receipt of emergency call to the arrival of fully equipped ambulance at the scene of the incident.
2. When calculating the percentage of calls resulting in a response within a specified time the total number of calls received was used as the denominator. It should be borne in mind that some of these calls (for example, aborted calls or hoax calls) will not have resulted in a response. The effect of this is to depress the percentage response figures slightly.
Source: KA34 DUI Statistics Division (SD2B) 1992.
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Table 2 Patient transport services 1990–91 Quality of service Emergency calls: Response times: Non-Metropolitan authorities England Ambulance authority Percentage of calls where response within 8 minutes (Target 50 per cent.) Percentage of calls where response within 20 minutes (Target 95 per cent.) Cleveland 64.4 91.1 Cumbria 55.6 91.4 Durham 53.3 96.7 Humberside 74.0 99.6 North Yorkshire 65.8 95.6 Derbyshire 49.2 96.4 Leicestershire 53.0 96.2 Lincolnshire 64.1 95.7 Nottinghamshire 58.4 96.5 Cambridgeshire 42.2 89.0 Norfolk 54.5 88.7 Suffolk 51.9 88.4 Bedfordshire 57.2 97.5 Hertfordshire 58.0 95.2 Essex 50.3 93.7 East Sussex 66.5 91.8 Kent 59.1 96.7 Surrey 51.0 97.0 West Sussex 59.9 93.6 Dorset 57.5 93.5 Hampshire 53.1 97.2 Wiltshire 64.3 97.7 Isle of Wight 47.3 83.9 Berkshire 47.0 93.1 Buckinghamshire 55.1 88.6 Northamptonshire 60.1 98.2 Oxfordshire 50.9 87.3 Avon 59.5 96.3 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly 40.7 90.4 Devon 54.0 94.2 Gloucestershire 59.9 94.8 Somerset 55.2 92.1 Hereford and Worcester 58.0 95.5 Shropshire 50.8 92.4 Staffordshire 47.8 97.7 Warwickshire 61.3 96.0
Ambulance authority Percentage of calls where response within 8 minutes ( Target 50 per cent.) Percentage of calls where response within 20 minutes ( Target 95 per cent.) Cheshire 56.2 87.4 Lancashire 67.1 98.9 Source: KA34 DH Statistics Division (SD2B) 1992.
Notes:
1. The response time of an ambulance is defined as the time elapsed from the receipt of an emergency call to the arrival of fully equipped ambulance at the scene of the incident.
2. When calculating the percentage of calls resulting in a response within a specified time the total number of calls received was used as the denominator. It should be borne in mind that some of the of these calls (for example, aborted calls or hoax calls) will not have resulted in a response. The effect of this is to depress the percentage response figures slightly.