Delayed Responses - The impact of congestion on emergency vehicle response times in London

The C1T response time for an incident is the response time of the first vehicle which is capable of conveying the patient. [...] The total response times have also been included along with the mean call answer time.22 By deducting the mean call answer time from the total response times we remove one of the major confounding factors (the time for the call to connect), leaving us with an estimate of the average time from the emergency call connecting to an operator through to the ambulance arriving on scene. [...] As the ambulance data covers total response time, other factors beyond the level of congestion experienced travelling to an incident are also at play - as in the periods when surging Covid-19 cases overwhelmed the service, which were subsequently followed by a sustained drops in call volumes compared to the baseline.23 Past NHS reviews of the factors behind geographical disparities in ambulance re. [...] For instance, analysis of NHS England data by the Nuffield Trust has found a similar pattern in C1 response times since 2018 at the national level, with a spike at the start of the pandemic followed by a dip during lockdown;25 but the national reduction in response time during this period was less pronounced than that seen in London - which in normal times is the most congested city in the UK.26 W. [...] Despite the confounding factors, the Department for Communities and Local Government has in the past used fire service data to develop a benchmark statistical model for planning fire service provision, in the form of the Fire Service Emergency Cover Toolkit.28 “Fatality rate response time relationships” were developed which attempted to quantify the impact of different response times on fatality r.