XN000022-1996-01-31 — Page 42

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Emergency ambulances service

Following is a question by the Hon James To and a reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Peter Lai, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):

Question:

According to the targets set out in the Performance Pledge of the Fire Services Department, ambulances should arrive at the scene within the standard ten-minute travelling time in 93.5% of all emergency ambulance calls and that fire engines should arrive at the scene within the standard six-minute response time in 90% of all fire calls. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council of:

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

the criteria adopted for determining the standard ten-minute travelling time for ambulances;

the reasons for taking six minutes as the standard response time for fire engines and ten minutes as the standard travelling time for ambulances;

the reasons why the activation time of a fire call is included in the standard six-minute response time for fire engines, whereas the standard ten-minute time for ambulances takes account of the travelling time only; and

a breakdown of the number of ambulances despatched in response to emergency calls which are able to arrive at the scene within ten, 15, 20 minutes or a longer time respectively (i.e. from the time of the receipt of calls by the Fire Services Communication Centre to the time of arrival of the first ambulance) in each of the past three years, as well as their respective proportions to the total number of ambulances despatched?

Reply:

Mr President,

(a)

The criteria adopted for determining the standard 10-minute travelling time for emergency ambulance calls were set following a 1986 Consultancy Study on the delivery of ambulance services. In setting the standard, we considered-