Eugene Murphy
Ceist:21. Deputy Eugene Murphy asked the Minister for Health if he envisages significant improvements in ambulance service provision in 2017; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30683/16]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 18 October 2016
Ceisteanna (21)
Freagraí ó Béal (10 píosaí cainte)
I want to ask the Minister for Health if we will see significant improvements in ambulance service provision in 2017. I am particularly interested in my constituency of Roscommon-Galway. Rural Ireland has to be looked at in a different way in terms of ambulance cover. There is a problem with response times. It is not acceptable. The delivery of unrealistic timelines for ambulance response in rural areas has not been tackled and patients are being left waiting.
I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. It is one he has raised with me before. The national ambulance service has undergone a programme of modernisation in recent years and a number of significant service innovations and developments have taken place. These include the establishment of the National Emergency Operations Centre, a state of the art facility, from where all call-taking and ambulance dispatch is now undertaken. The centre also houses the ambulance training college.
We have had substantial investment in new technology and fleet to help improve ambulance service provision. The intermediate care service has been introduced to provide inter-hospital transfers for some lower acuity patients, as we have already discussed, and this is freeing up more emergency ambulances for more urgent calls.
We have also established the emergency aeromedical support service to provide rapid access to appropriate treatment for very high acuity patients in remote rural areas where access by land ambulance may be difficult or take too long.
I am fully conscious of the need for a multi-annual programme of phased investment in ambulance manpower, vehicles and technology. In that regard, I assure Deputy Murphy that increased funding will be available to the national ambulance service for 2017. The detail of the improvements to be funded will be provided in the HSE's 2017 national service plan. Over the coming weeks my Department will work closely with its counterparts in the HSE and the national ambulance service to agree priorities for the 2017 allocation. I will reflect the Deputy's concerns in that regard.
The Minister addressed this with a deputation he met from Roscommon University Hospital. I thank him for that occasion because there was a great expression of views. The Lightfoot Solutions report, commissioned by the HSE and published in May, stated that the national ambulance service required 750 more staff and 250 more ambulances to ensure delivery of a safe and swift service. Only one in 15 ambulances are reaching patients in need of emergency care within the eight minute target in rural Ireland. That is not acceptable, considering that 60% of patients in rural Ireland live another 45 minutes or more from an accident and emergency department. That is the reality if one lives in central Roscommon and one is trying to get to Galway. The least we can do is ensure that emergencies are dealt with in a timely fashion by the ambulance. Our accident and emergency service has been cut and other accident and emergency services in rural areas have been closed. The one thing we must have, and which we were promised, is a proper ambulance service. That is what is required in the constituency of Roscommon-Galway.
I will make two points about the Lightfoot Solutions capacity report. I am familiar with the report as it was the first thing to land on my desk when I was appointed Minister for Health. First, it requires a multi-annual funding plan. Nobody in this House or working in the national ambulance service believes we can implement all of the recommendations in the Lightfoot Solutions report in one year, but what we can and must do is show progress year on year. Recently, I met the unions representing the ambulance personnel and I visited the national ambulance service co-ordination centre to discuss this. In 2017 more funding will be spent on the national ambulance service than in the current year, and this year we spent more on it than we did last year.
There is another point, and the Deputy mentioned it with regard to ambulance response times. The Lightfoot Solutions report is an external report by a UK firm, the first such report on our ambulance service. It stated that even if it were possible to put in place all of the required ambulance personnel and the extra ambulances, and they are not all available even if we had the funding, there would still be an issue in rural Ireland due to how our population is dispersed compared with the UK. According to Lightfoot Solutions, that involves examining the role of community first responders and the role of the air ambulance. We must be honest with each other on these issues. Even when we make the improvements to the ambulance service, these target times will require new ways of being examined.
I was surprised, but delighted, to hear the Minister say there will be increased funding for the national ambulance service. Why has a review of the role of advanced paramedics as part of the national ambulance service in the mid-west been announced? This has been confirmed by the ambulance service. There have also been meetings about it, including one in Tipperary. I presume that this review will mean there will be more advanced paramedics, given the closure by the Fianna Fáil and Green Party Government of the accident and emergency departments in Nenagh and Ennis. The advanced paramedics were in place to deal with the fact that there is a large geographical area which ambulances will not reach in time. I presume there will be more paramedics as a result of this review, rather than fewer. I know what I am talking about here. My parliamentary assistant would have died were it not for the fact that one of these advanced paramedics reached her in time.
I thank the Deputy for raising this. I will have to revert to him about the specifics relating to the mid-west, but I thank him for making me aware of the details about the advanced paramedics. I envisage an important role for advanced paramedics. I am providing more funding to the national ambulance service for the coming year than was provided for this year, and more funding was provided this year than was provided last year. However, I will revert directly to the Deputy on the issue.
Deputy Alan Kelly is a woeful man at getting in the back door, even when it is locked. I tabled the question and I should get my two minutes.
Deputy Murphy is as familiar as I am with the Standing Orders.
I accept that. I learned from being in the Chair that Deputy Alan Kelly is good at this.
I wish to make another point to the Minister. A great deal of money is wasted when a number of ambulances attend accidents on the roads where one ambulance would suffice. I know what happens. An accident occurs and all of the ambulances are sent in the same direction, whether a garda, doctor or nurse arrives at the scene. Twice recently I was the first person to arrive at the scene of an accident. One person was injured and thankfully nobody was killed. One ambulance and one fire service vehicle would have been sufficient. A great deal of time is wasted and many ambulances are taken out of service for a period of time when that happens. My suggestion is that a person in authority could ring the centre to let it know that only one ambulance is needed.
The issue the Deputy raises should no longer occur because we have a national emergency control centre. It is a single control centre over two sites, Tallaght and Ballyshannon. We have nine regional call centres which have been merged into the national centre, to ensure there is greater visibility and that the resources are deployed as effectively as possible. All emergency calls to the national ambulance service are now received and dispatched from the national emergency control centre. We also have the use of technology, such as digital radio, computer aided dispatch and mobile data terminals, to allow the NAS to use resources more effectively on a national basis, rather than in small geographical areas, using a single computer aided dispatch platform. I visited the centre recently to see how the service now has sight of all of the ambulances. If the Deputies are interested in seeing more of this or meeting with the NAS or visiting the centre, I will be happy to arrange it.