Merseyside’s ambulance service misses its emergency response time targets

May 13 2009 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

MERSEYSIDE’S ambulance service is taking too long to respond to emergency calls, according to new figures.

North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) last night blamed an unprecedented demand during the past year and a change in how data is recorded for missing its targets.

Union representatives also claimed the targets fail to address how patients are cared for.

Last year, 73.36% of the most serious calls – Category A – were responded to within eight minutes, even though the target stands at 75%.

The target to reach the patient within 19 minutes for 95% of category A calls was met, but the same target for Category B calls – classed as serious but not life-threatening – was missed, with only 85.98% of crews making it in time.

More specific targets concerning hospital and on-scene turnaround times were not met either.

Last night, NWAS said it had reached more patients in a shorter time than ever before over the last year and performance “demonstrably improved across all targets for emergency calls”.

It claimed the introduction of call connect last year, which means the “target clock” now starts ticking when a phone is picked up in the control centre, as opposed to when all the details are received, had a big impact.