AMBULANCE bosses in Lancashire say they will need extra cash to achieve government targets on reaching life-threatening emergency calls.

Now Lancashire Ambulance Service plans to transfer minor 999 calls to the NHS Direct line, to make maximum use of their stretched resources.

By 2001, all ambulance services must answer three-quarters of so-called 'Category A' emergencies - where the patient's life is in danger - within eight minutes.

But Lancashire Ambulance Service chiefs have said that the target would be almost impossible to achieve with current resources.

Lancashire was the second quickest rural service in the country for answering Category A calls during the last financial year - but still fell short of the government's 75 per cent target.

John Calderbank, Lancashire Ambulance Service's assistant chief executive, said: "If you bear in mind the rural geography of Lancashire, the government target is difficult to reach.

"We are working with the local health authority in an attempt to secure extra resources. Without those resources we are limited in what we can achieve." Overall, the response times to 999 calls of Lancashire's ambulance crews were slightly below standards set a year ago - although nearly 97 per cent of calls were answered within the required 19 minutes.

And responses to 'urgent' calls - ambulances booked by GPs to admit patients in need of hospital treatment - improved considerably, although were still well short of government targets.

Ambulance chiefs are now working to improve response times by prioritising calls.

The Lancashire service's Trust board has proposed a pilot scheme which will identify and transfer minor 999 calls to the NHS Direct Line - transferring the calls back to the emergency line if necessary.

Mr Calderbank said: "We get cases of people dialling 999 with cases of measles or other minor types of complaint, where the caller has dialled the emergency number because they don't where else to turn.

"At the moment, we have to send a fully-equipped ambulance to these cases. Under the pilot scheme, control room staff would ask callers extra questions in order to separate these calls from the emergencies."

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