SKYAID
New 
Mission
Overview   
Details    
Medical   
Watch   
Heart attack  
Stroke    
World health  
Emergency
Cost effective
Media 
- Site Map 

SKYCAR   
Details   
Overview  
VTOL   
Airline   
Military   
Transportation
Images 
- Site Map

Search

Translate 
  8 languages
 

A national census of ambulance response time to emergency calls in Ireland

J Accident Med 2000; 17:392-395     added 12/29/00

Abstract
Background—Equity of access to appropri­ate pre-hospital emergency care is a core principle underlying an effective ambu­lance service. Care must be provided within a timeframe in which it is likely to be effective. A national census of response times to emergency and urgent calls in statutory ambulance services in Ireland was undertaken to assess current service provision.
Methods—A prospective census of response times to all emergency and urgent calls was carried out in the nine ambulance services in the country over a period of one week. The times for call receipt, activation, arrival at and departure from scene and arrival at hospital were analysed. Crew type, location of-call and distance from ambulance base were detailed. The type of incident leading to the call was recorded but no further clinical information was gathered.
Results—2426 emergency calls were received by the services during the week. Fourteen per cent took five minutes or longer to activate (range 5-33%). Thirty eight per cent of emergencies received a response within nine minutes (range 10-47%). Only 4.5% of emergency calls originating greater than five miles from an ambulance station were responded to within nine minutes (range 0-10%). Median patient care times for "on call" crews were three times longer than "on duty" crews.
Conclusion—Without prioritised use of available resources, inappropriately de­layed responses to critical incidents will continue. Recommendations are made to improve the effectiveness of emergency medical service utilisation. (J Accid Emerg Med 2000,17:392-395)

Skyaid comments:
It is Sudden Cardiac Death if more than 5 miles from on-duty ambulance base, or if responded to by on-call ambulance base. 
On-call ambulance bases had a median response time of 20 minutes.

see also SCD reduced by 2X