Ambulance's tied up

sure we are all discussing the time that the DFB and HSE have their full compliment of ambulances on the road, what about the time when the DFB ambulance have broken down and have to change over and worse still which has happened only last weekend in rathfarnham that the fire brigade ran out of spear ambulances and had to take one of them of the road for the night and run one ambulance down for the whole night all because the senior officer in charge on that night refuse to get a mechanic in to fix it because of the ban on bringing in mechanics after hours in order to save money, and this also happened some months ago too with the swords ambulance, ye don't hear about that in the papers...
and the HSE are paying for this????

Leadinglady your correct there but the HSE do not pay for all the reserves ambo only for 1 open to correction.
Sure the HSE are not paying for what they are meant to be paying DFB for at the moment and would be in no position to complain.They dont fund 134 (swords ambo)so DFB had on the road what is ment to be there as DFB are running 134 out of there own pockets and get NO MONEY from HSE for this service.Think there was 4 reserve ambo on Sunday night and it was only from 00:30hrs for apx 12hrs.HSE eastern region run ratio of 55 on the road with 4 spare so all in all DFB ratio a hell of a lot better 12 on the road with 4 spare.There should have been 3 new ambulance last year but for a legal challenge to tender process the deliver dates have been delayed over a year.Will be 3 new ones by end of year with a further 3 in first half next year.So the break downs should reduce with introduction of new spec ambo.

If the A+E delays were sorted problems solved to a certain extent.I am fed up with the politics going on in certain A+E depts.Last week stood there looking at empty trolley for 2 hours while they decided what to do with it and then you have the cases that after 3 hours waiting on trolley they say they can sit in wheel chair aaaaggggghhhhh all because there are now 5 ambulance waiting.

As for the privates doing 999 work not to far off if the Beacon service takes off.

http://www.sbpost.ie/news/ireland/beacon-to-launch-ambulance-service-44607.html

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/private-ambulance--will-widen-health-gap-1899290.html

As for the number of HSE ambo in DUB region
HSE Eastern Region Ambulance Staff – July 2009
Category
Numbers
Ambulance Staff
183
Patient Transport Staff
15
National Ambulance College
12
Administration, etc. backup
11.5
Management/Supervisor
14
Vacancies
6.5
Total
242
40.7
The HSE Eastern Region provides the service with 55 ambulances including four spare vehicles. In addition, a motorcycle unit provides rapid response to emergency calls. The service also provides a dedicated national neonatal and mobile intensive care retrieval service. As well as responding to emergency calls the HSE service also provides inter-hospital transfers of patients and responses to urgent calls from doctors. Figure 146 details the deployment of the ambulances in the HSE Eastern Region.
Figure 146 HSE Eastern Region Ambulances – July 2009 Region Dublin City and County

James’s Street
7 max on duty
7 spare
14 total

Tallaght
1 max on duty
1 spare
2 total

Swords
2 max on duty
1 spare
3 total

Loughlinstown
4 max on duty
3 spare
7 total

Other Eastern Region
Wicklow
3 max on duty
3 spare
6 total

Arklow
1 max on duty
1 spare
2 total

Baltinglass
1 max on duty
1 spare
2 total

Maynooth
1 max on duty
1 spare
2 total

Naas
4 max on duty
4 spare
8 total

Athy
2 max on duty
2 spare
4 total

National Services
Loughlinstownb
2 max on duty
— spare
2 total
James’s Streetc
3 max on duty
—spare
3 total
Total
31 max on duty
24 spare
55 total

Notes:
a The additional spare ambulances are required to allow duty commencement if existing crews have not returned to base when a shift is due to start. Routine servicing and breakdown is also accommodated within this complement by moving ambulances from one location to another when necessary.
b Two incident response ambulances are based in Loughlinstown.
c Two neonatal and one mobile intensive care ambulances are based in James’s Street.

Have a read of Comptroller and Auditor General Annual Report 2008page 411 chapter 40 in regards to provision of Dublin ambo service,
http://www.audgen.irlgov.ie/documents/annualreports/2008/Annual_Report_2008_Eng.pdf



Smokey Bear