Ambulance service beats response time targets

THE region’s ambulance service has surpassed national targets for response times, according to the latest monthly report by the Department of Health.

The East of England Ambulance Service (EEAS) attended 76.21 per cent of potentially life-threatening calls within eight minutes in March, exceeding the Government’s benchmark of 75 per cent.

The ambulance service responded to 19,659 potentially life-threatening, or ‘red category’, calls in March getting to 15,010 within eight minutes.

Of those red calls, 19,569 required a double-staffed ambulance to transport patients to hospital and 18,657 arrived at hospital within 19 minutes - a 95.34 per cent rate against the 95 per cent national target.

The latest achievement means EEAS has beaten the targets for the entire year between April 2011 and March 2012.

EEAS chief executive Hayden Newton said: “Everyone in the service is delighted to see all the hard work from staff, volunteers and man- agers in delivering improvements for patients pay off with these excellent results.

“It means we have now exceeded the national target for getting to 75 per cent of high priority calls within eight minutes over the year and can now look forward to building on those improvements even further going forward into the next 12 months.

“We will continue to focus on giving patients the right care in the right place at the right time and reducing patient handover times at hospitals.”