NHS: Ambulance Response Times

Baroness Hussein-Ece Excerpts

Monday 21st July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, we owe a great deal to the air ambulance services across the country, all of which, I think I am right in saying, are organised as charities. However, it is the case that in every instance the NHS pays for the clinical staff on those ambulances while the charity pays for the helicopter and the pilot. That is the balance we have struck and successive Governments have taken the view that it is the most cost-effective model for the NHS. However, that is not to downplay the very important role that ambulances perform in our society.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister give an assurance that, when ambulances are called out for patients who are having prolonged epileptic seizures, there will be qualified paramedics in attendance and that we shall not go back to the situation we had of several tragic cases where paramedics were not in attendance and patients with prolonged epileptic seizures died before they got to hospital?