Rapid response vehicles 'a waste of taxpayers' money'

Lagan Valley MLA Jonathan Craig says the people of area were "quite frankly sold a pup" when the two vehicles were provided in 2009.

"When the surgery unit at Lagan Valley Hospital closed in 2009 the South Eastern Trust sought to make positive headlines by allocating two Rapid Response Vehicles to the Lisburn Ambulance Service" he said.

"These vehicles were to compensate for the number of journeys necessary to take patients requiring surgery to hospitals in Belfast, by-passing Lagan Valley. At the same time one Ambulance was removed from service, leaving one to cover Monday to Thursday nights and two to cover Friday to Sunday nights. Two Ambulances were left with the third removed."

But Mr Craig said that since the RRVs cannot transport patients they are used as "a means to provide better statistics in terms of response times" and are "therefore wholly and utterly useless for the purpose that they were intended."

Mr Craig also claimed one of the two vehicles is not in service and has remained in the place it was delivered to.

He said: "The other one is in use, but only on a part time basis. Since April, 11 days have been failed to be covered by either RRV whilst only 76 days have been fully covered. The vehicles are supposed to be in use between the hours of 7am and 2am. However on an average day the RRVs are only in used for 8-12 hours out of a total of 19.

"This appears to me to be a total and utter waste of public funds, especially when the public purse strings are tight."

He continued: "This is not about lack of resources, this is about mismanagement of existing resources and personnel."

A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said: "The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service would contest any assertion that Rapid Response Vehicles 'are being used as a means to provide positive response times for the purpose of statistics'.

"A major factor in securing positive clinical outcomes for patients suffering from serious illness or injury is the prompt arrival of a trained paramedic with the skills and equipment necessary to commence immediate treatment.

"NIAS has, within the current period of the Comprehensive Spending Review, transformed its model of delivery of pre-hospital care to a paramedic led service. Paramedics are the most highly trained staff within our service and seek to provide patients with the highest levels of care at their time of need."They continued: "NIAS frontline staff, supported by control and other staff, are now getting to more patients quicker than ever before and therefore saving more lives in all areas of Northern Ireland. NIAS considers the use of tactical deployment, whereby the nearest appropriate resource is despatched to an emergency call, an integral part of the system which seeks to ensure that ambulance response is delivered to respond to patients' needs.

"NIAS will continue to monitor and review performance in all areas affected by changes resulting from the Comprehensive Spending Review."