XN000022-1996-01-24 — Page 78

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Measures to improve emergency ambulance services

The Government has taken measures to improve the performance of the Emergency Ambulance Service, resulting in 90.3 per cent of emergency calls being reached within the target 10 minutes' travel time in the last quarter of 1995.

In replying a question by the Hon Wong Wai-yin in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday), the Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, said the improvement came as a result of measures implemented by the Fire Services Department, and the completion of the hiving off programme of non-emergency ambulance services to the Hospital Authority.

Mr Lai said the Government had commissioned a Consultancy Study on Emergency Ambulance Service last year to identify ways to achieve cost-effective improvements in the provision of emergency ambulance services.

The improvement measures that were recommended and which the Fire Services Department has implemented include:

Stationing of ambulances in fire stations in addition to ambulance depots to extend emergency ambulance cover. The fire stations involved include North Point, Kotewall Road, Ap Lei Chau, Kwai Chung, Sheung Shui and Sha Tau Kok;

Redeployment of ambulances and their crew from stations with relatively adequate manning to those where manning is inadequate to meet local demand;

Streamlining of the Fire Services Communication Centre's operational procedures for ambulance deployments to achieve more effective mobilisation;

Actively pursuing the transfer of residual non-emergency cases to another agency to enable the Fire Services Department to better concentrate on its delivery of emergency ambulance services; and

Including the performance of ambulance aid motorcycles, which provide life-saving first aid before an ambulance reaches the scene, in the calculation of emergency ambulance performance.