On Thu, 4 Jun 2015 20:50:37 +0100, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

isn't 27 minutes some what outside the target response
times?

Have you ever been to Alton Towers? It's not exactly urban.

It's a damn site nearer manned emergency services than we are. I
should imagine that Ashbourne, Uttoxter, Cheadle have small manned
ambulance and fire stations. Stoke-on-Trent/Newcastle-under-Lyme is
only 12 miles away, those places will have all the toys.

Nearest, small, manned stations to us are over twenty miles away, 30+
to big stations. But when the roads are closed, as happens for a few
days every winter, getting in by road is just not possible or if it
is it'll on roads "passable with care by a 4x4 on winter tyres" and
take hours.

The NWAS tried to take away the old ambulance on CQC grounds until
the community pointed out that even in the summer in good weather the
average response time for an external ambulance was about 50 mins. We
now have one of the very few, if not the only, retained Ambulance in
the country. Paid for by NWAS and staffed by volunteers trained by
NWAS to Emergency Medical Technician 1. Which I think means they
should be able to keep you alive until the Dr/Paramedic arrives in a
GNAS helicopter. One of which is based just a few minutes flying time
away. But remember all the Air Ambulance Services are charities, not
part of the regional ambulance service or paid for by the regional
ambulance service or central government.

--
Cheers
Dave.