Emergency callers to fire brigade left waiting up to eight minutes on phone

Callers to the Dublin Fire Brigade have been left needlessly waiting up to eight minutes on the phone for an ambulance because of "convoluted" internal processes, according to a new report.

And less than one in three calls involving some life-threatening situations are responded to by the National Ambulance Service within the target time, the report by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) finds.

Some 14,000 calls a year are left in a queue while the service, when overloaded, seeks an ambulance from the National Ambulance Service. One in four of these calls experience a potentially clinically significant and avoidable delay as a result, the report estimates.

The NAS aims to have a “first responder” on the scene of an emergency call within 7 minutes and 59 seconds in at least 75 per cent of cases, though it stopped publishing data on its performance against this target last October.

The best monthly result for ECHO calls, involving an immediately life-threatening cardiac or respiratory arrest, was 58 per cent. The best result for DELTA calls, involving other life-threatening situations, was just 34 per cent.

The report says the NAS has demonstrated consistent underperformance in the efficiency of call-taking and the processing of emergency calls, and this has contributed to poor response times to ECHO and DELTA calls. “Despite this poor performance, there was no evidence to suggest that staff were aware of performance failure, and there have been no tangible high-impact changes introduced to address these deficits in performance.”

The DFB’s best monthly figures saw it respond to 87 per cent of ECHO calls within the 7 minute 59 second target, and to 55 per cent of DELTA calls. Compared to response times in urban settings in other jurisdictions, this performance is relatively poor, according to the report.

“Better performance in call handling and dispatch could save minutes in overall response in some circumstances, and better performance management of this, together with the NAS, would result in faster response times for patients.

Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said the Hiqa review would act as a catalyst for further improvements to the ambulance services.

More investment was needed to modernise the fleet of ambulances, he said, but existing resources could also be used better. “More ambulances could be on dynamic dispatch rather than being parked up and waiting for a call in fire stations, ambulance bases or hospitals. A lot more needs to be done to improve turnaround times at Emergency Departments.”