A new briefing presented to the Joint Committee on Health revealed that HSE West and North West and the HSE Mid West were the worst-performing regions last year. The report highlights that despite national targets, response times for life-threatening emergencies continue to fall short.

Under current standards, ambulances should reach 75% of cardiac or respiratory arrest cases, known as Purple calls, and 45% of other life-threatening emergencies (Red calls), within 19 minutes. However, in the West and North West, just 64% of Purple calls and 45% of Red calls were made within the target time. The Mid West region performed only slightly better, at 69% and 46% respectively.

The HSE said it aims to reduce the average longest waiting time from two hours to one hour as part of a new three-to-five-year strategy to improve ambulance performance.

Last year, the NAS responded to over 430,000 emergency calls, representing a 10% increase from the previous year. However, pressures remain acute at hospital emergency departments, where ambulance turnaround times, which are the period between arrival and readiness for the next call, averaged 45 minutes, well above the target of 20 minutes in 80% of cases. In June, the goal was achieved in only 57% of cases.

During the committee meeting, Fianna Fáil TD Martin Daly reported hearing of cases where ambulance turnaround took up to five hours. Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson, David Cullinane, expressed alarm at reports of patients waiting over two hours for emergency responses, describing the situation as “deeply concerning.”