AMBULANCE bosses in Lancashire have welcomed moves to cut response times in life-threatening incidents.

The Government is considering prioritising 999 calls to force mercy crews to respond to 90 per cent of life-threatening incidents within eight minutes.

Rural services, including Lancashire, are currently required to respond to 95 per cent of all emergency calls within 19 minutes.

David Hill, chief executive of Lancashire Ambulance NHS Trust, said: "We very much support the changes and look forward to implementing them.

"In Lancashire we are particularly well placed to respond to the proposal. We are currently getting to around 70 per cent of all cases within eight minutes and to over 98 per cent within 19 minutes.

"We believe that for certain life-threatening conditions the arrival of a paramedic within eight minutes can be absolutely crucial in saving lives."

He added: "Our service has recently introduced a system of providing pre-arrival advice to 999 callers by telephone until the ambulance arrives and this has been very well received by the public.

"We will continue to develop this system to enable our trained operators to prioritise the dispatch of an ambulance and I am confident that we shall be able to offer an even better service and save more lives by prioritising our response."

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