XN000022-1996-01-31 — Page 43

(b)

(ii)

(iii)

(iv)

(v)

(vi)

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the demand and distribution of emergency calls at that time;

the projected demand and distribution taking into account historical trends, plus population forecasts and infrastructure developments anticipated over the five-year period to 1991;

traffic conditions and road configurations throughout the territory;

the actual performance then being achieved by the ambulance service. At that time, about 95% of calls were being met within travel times of 15 minutes;

the standard applying elsewhere. For instance, the Metropolitan Health Authority in London had a standard 11-minute target travel time; and

the optimal use of resources then available to us.

The second part of the question concerns the different targets adopted for fire appliances and for ambulances. I have just mentioned the criteria that we adopted in setting a 10-minute target travel time for ambulances. This 10-minute target applies uniformly throughout the territory.

We have a graded response time target for fire appliances. In the urban area and areas of assessed high fire risk, our target is that we aim to respond to 90% of building fire calls in six minutes, which is the In other areas of accepted international standard response time. dispersed risk and isolated development, the graded response time varies from 9 to 20 minutes. Our graded response time is very close to those in other advanced countries and regions.

For fires, we have a graded response time target because the risk levels vary in different parts of the territory. This is obviously not the case with ambulances: an injured or sick person requires the same level of ambulance service wherever they are.