East Midlands: Ambulance chief pledges to improve response times

Sue Noyes wants to to hit response times by the end of March. EMAS was fined £3.5million in May last year after it had missed response time targets for a third successive year.

Mrs Noyes, who was appointed on an interim basis in October after after Phil Milligan resigned in August, said a number of changes were taking place to hit targets.

“We have been improving our community improvement programme which looks at the whole organisation,” she said.

“I have put on hold some of the estate changes because I want people to be focussed on improving response times and the winter period. We need to just focus on the here and now.”

Among changes being made are the introduction of a GP in the control room and a consultant paramedic. It is their job to help ensure the right resources are being allocated to the right incident.

She said that she was particulary keen to maintain and improve links with primary care. A large proportion of 999 calls are to do with primary care and are not emergenices, she added.

The plan also includes increasing staffing levels and buying more vehicles for its first responders.