§ Mr. Andrew TurnerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what is the maximum number of casualties the Isle of Wight ambulance service could cope with in one incident; and what additional resources are required to meet a major incident. [28234]
§ Ms BlearsIt is not possible to define the number of casualties that the Isle of Wight could cope with in one incident. That would depend on the nature of the incident.
Each incident is assessed by a duty officer, and if there were insufficient resources available locally to deal with the incident, we would instigate the escalation procedure in our major incident plan. This would involve calling upon the neighbouring ambulance services (Hampshire ambulance national health service) for assistance.