Alliance Motion Calls For Urgent Plan To Address Ambulance Delays

The Alliance Party has called for a an urgent plan to tackle "unacceptable delays" in ambulance services across Northern Ireland.

Health spokesperson and Deputy Chair of the Assembly's Health Committee, Danny Donnelly MLA was speaking ahead of an Alliance motion to the Assembly today, Monday 13 January, which calls on the Health Minister to urgently bring forward proposals to improve the availability and capacity of ambulance services, including a workforce plan. It would tackle capacity problems in a service which missed every one of its response time targets last year.

"Most people have either been directly affected or know someone who has been by this issue. It is clear the Department of Health has failed to get to grips with it over a number of years and the people of Northern Ireland are feeling the impact," said Mr Donnelly. "The facts are stark – in the most recent complete statistics, ambulance response times for all categories of call-outs were missed in every month of the year. Meanwhile, in the current financial year, calls for life-threatening injuries are almost 50 per cent behind their target. For the urgent problem category, 24-hour waits are not unheard of.

"Behind each of those statistics are people with agonising waits, with some coming to further harm waiting for the healthcare they deserve. Nobody should be in that position. That is not to criticise the Ambulance Service staff, who deserve praise for working in such challenging conditions. They aren't to blame for our crumbling emergency care system, which is forcing ambulances to spend hours sitting outside hospitals when they could be out responding to calls instead.

"Undoubtedly, winter pressures have added to the problems facing the Ambulance Service, but this is a year-round issue, with a Health Minister who receives more than 50 per cent of the Executive's Budget, yet has no answers to the challenges facing the health service other than to ask for more money.

"Alliance's motion calls for a workforce plan and other reforms in order to boost capacity in the Ambulance Service, including a better flow of patients through A&E and out of hospitals. Only by doing this will patients across Northern Ireland receive the care they deserve."