News Story for our News Day Papers!
February 26, 2008
Hampshire Ambulance – Response Times
The Hampshire Emergency Services have the same problem as many others, response times. With a high rate of calls coming from the Winchester area the time it takes for a service to reach the scene is often tested to the max, especially when it comes to Ambulances.
Chairman for the Hampshire Ambulance Service, Tony Barron said “We make sure that all of our Response Units are trained professionally and carry all of the necessary equipment. Response times are a constant reminder to us that every second really does count, and we try to reach the scene as quickly as possible.”
Most cases, Barron claims are to be reached within 8 to 19 minutes, depending on the class of how serious they are. Classes range from ‘Life Threatening’ to ‘Regular’ which is often given to cases of Binge Drinking. Barron also claimed that 30% of recent 999 calls have been due to drinking, focusing the attention on the teenagers of Winchester. Claire Severgnini, Chief Executive claimed – “The response times to more serious cases in Hampshire are often disrupted due to the party-goers out on the booze.”
We surveyed the public in Winchesters town centre to get their views on Response times, and the one recurring issue was that the town centre is one of the biggest problems for Ambulances. The winding crossroads located near the ‘O’Neils’ restaurant are often a problem due to traffic jams throughout the day.
The recent closure of Romsey Road’s bridge meant that a response time would suffer almost 5 extra minutes to reach neighbouring areas. Whilst the work could not be avoided most of the public said the Ambulance service should have been better prepared for such a closure.
So it seems as if a combination of common incidents within Winchester means that Ambulance services have to deal with a larger number of calls and have further distances to travel in some cases. Time will tell if they can counter this factor with new road routes or more Ambulances to cater for the publics needs, the Council may also consider creating plans to make access easier in the near future.
I just read your comment on the messageboard about the Daily Express and libel.
Thanks for that.
Christian (below) – the Express accused parents of killing their own children and then lying about it. This is a classic example of a defamatory statement. The main defence to this would be ‘judstification’ – ie ‘it is true and we can prove it’. Normally this would mean reporting that they had been convicted of these crimes in court (even if they pleaded not guilty). There would probably be a common law qualified privilege defence (Reynolds/Jameel) if the Express was reporting conerns along the the lines of these allegations from the police or from some other reliable source. But they would have to show that their journalism had been done in the public inetrest, that it waqs meticulopusly professional and had followed the Reynolds 10 point test. A comment defence would be a non-starter beyond some very general remarks saying the McCann’s looked a bit shifty or something, or that the Portugese police were no good or something. You need as ever to be very carreful about the difference between factual allegations and comment in order to have that defence. Having said all this I must also within the same blog entry emphasise above all that there was not a shred of evidence accepted by the court that the allegations made by the Express were in any way true.
But yes, it is a good, easy example of libel. Note that he damages awarded were £550,000. On top of that the Express would have had legal costs of maybe another £500,000 or more (it was in the High Court, like all contested libel actions). So this has cost them £1 million; plus maybe the same PR damage to their image (Express = gets it wrong on important story / persecutes grieving parents). Damage to the Daily Star is probably less, beause few people would believe much of what is said on that paper anyway. A very bad day at the office for the Express job, and a bad day for journalism as a trade – no wonder the public don’t like us (see Year Two single hons blog – Graham complaining that the public doesn’t like journos. After the antics of the Express and Star, is it really any surprise?