End
(c)
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Turning to the third part of the question, we have always used response time targets for fire calls. We adopted a 10-minute travel time target for ambulance services following the conclusions of the 1986 ambulance service consultancy study. The consultant recommended this for the reasons I gave in my answer to the first part of the question.
The 1986 Consultancy Study on ambulance services was updated by a further consultancy study last year. One of the conclusions reached by the consultant was that it is now more feasible to consider how to place emergency ambulance services on a response time target. However, the consultant recommended that we should not do this formally until we are able to regularly meet our current 10-minute travel time target. In the meantime, however, we are exploring the feasibility of monitoring overall response times so that we can establish a benchmark for future reference.
(d)
Our current statistical system does not allow us to give the detailed statistics asked for by the Honourable Member in this part of the question. However, I can offer some figures on ambulance performance against the 10-minute travel time target. In 1993, the total no. of emergency calls is 268,943 of which 248,718 calls i.e. 92.5% are able to arrive at the scene within the 10-minute target travel time. The total no. of calls in 1994 is 289,289 of which 265,220 calls i.e. 91.7% responded within the 10-minute target travel time. For 1995, the total no. of calls is 317,749 and 284,481 calls i.e. 89.5% achieved the 10-minute target travel time.