Ambulance response time in Ireland: the legal implications

In Ireland, pre-hospital emergency health care is provided in the vast majority of the country by the Health Service Executive's (HSE's) National Ambulance Service. In Dublin, pre-hospital emergency health care is provided by the National Ambulance Service and the Dublin Fire Brigade. Furthermore, emergency care is also provided in some cases by the Air Corps and the Irish Coast Guard. In December 2014, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) published a review of public pre-hospital emergency care services. As part of that review HIQA examined compliance with Pre-hospital Emergency Care Key Performance Indicators for Emergency Response Times (HIQA, 2012). The review found that the National Ambulance Service and Dublin Fire Brigade both struggled for a variety of reasons to meet national response time key performance indicators (HIQA, 2014). A failure to meet key performance indicators has the potential to result in litigation against the health and ambulance services, where an individual alleges that he or she has suffered an injury as a consequence of the failure of an ambulance to arrive on scene within a reasonable time. This paper will examine the legal implications of failing to respond to 999 or 112 telephone calls within a reasonable time or within agreed guidelines.