AQW 53386/11-16

Ms Claire Sugden
Independent
East Londonderry

Tabled Date: 25/01/2016
Answered On Date: 23/03/2016
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety for his assessment of (i) the staffing levels in the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, (ii) its capacity to meet the demands on the service; and (iii) reliance on support from private ambulances.

Answer:

(i) The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) employs 1,285 staff. The frontline emergency ambulance tier of the service, comprising paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs), has a funded establishment of 756 staff. There are no vacancies at paramedic grade and 80 vacancies at EMT grade. NIAS has been engaged in a comprehensive workforce stabilisation programme from March 2015 recruiting paramedics, EMTs and Patient Care staff. Two further EMT training programmes are scheduled to commence in 2016.

(ii) The NIAS operates across Northern Ireland from 36 stations and 14 sub-stations, 2 Control Centres, a Regional Training Centre and its headquarters. Approximately 90% of the workforce is directly involved in the provision of services to patients. With this capacity the NIAS responds to approximately 150,000 emergency 999 calls and 40,000 GP calls per year. The Control Centre handles over 850,000 phone calls when dealing with this emergency and urgent workload. NIAS also operates a Patient Care Service for routine transport to and from hospital or inter-hospital transfers. Additional funding of £775,000 has been allocated to NIAS in 2015/16 and £1,077,000 recurrently from 2016/17 to manage increasing demand due to demographic growth.

(iii) NIAS has a procurement framework in place to allow it to use voluntary and private sector ambulance services as support when there is an increase in demand, for example to help with patient flow during the winter months or with major events.