Heart Attack Victims (Hansard, 20 March 1997)

§ Mr. Sheerman
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the proposal for motor cycle ambulances to provide an initial rapid response to heart attack victims in urban areas. [20130]

§ Mr. Horam
Ambulance services are increasingly making use of motor cycles to get paramedics more quickly to the scene of incidents. When ambulance services have adopted call prioritisation systems the arrival of a paramedic on a motor cycle within the target time will count towards the patients charter standard.

§ Mr. Sheerman
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to provide paramedics with clot busting drugs for heart attack victims. [20131]

§ Mr. Horam
There are risks connected with the administration of these drugs and there are no plans at present to provide them to paramedics. However, the position is kept under review.

§ Mr. Sheerman
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what steps he is taking to ensure a rapid response by ambulance services to heart attack victims. [20133]

§ Mr. Horam
On 1 April four ambulance services will be implementing call prioritisation systems which will enable them to assess calls so that the most serious cases.