:00:02. > :00:07.The Government has got to make sure that those forces that are failing
:00:07. > :00:17.are brought up to the standard of those that are not. And why dialing
:00:17. > :00:25.
:00:25. > :00:29.999 does not always mean that they June 11th last year. It is the
:00:29. > :00:34.middle of the night and this antique jewellery store in Surrey
:00:34. > :00:37.has some unwelcome visitors. It is something the own Angela French
:00:37. > :00:41.hoped she would never see. It is clearly well-planned. They know
:00:41. > :00:45.exactly where they are going. cased the joint. They must have
:00:45. > :00:51.been inside and outside, looking from outside and working out which
:00:51. > :00:54.cabinet had silver in and which were worth targeting. Until two
:00:54. > :00:59.years ago they had not been a single robbery in this shop but
:00:59. > :01:03.since then there have been four like this at two of them saw the
:01:03. > :01:07.thieves making off with tens of thousands of pounds worth of stock.
:01:07. > :01:14.In every occasion they were long gone before the police arrived. How
:01:14. > :01:18.long from the initial alarm going off? About 20 minutes. 20 minutes?
:01:18. > :01:22.Did that surprise you? Very much. You think the police are around but
:01:22. > :01:27.they are not at all. During the last raid on the shop, the raiders
:01:27. > :01:31.reversed a car into a battering ram to force the door. This time the
:01:31. > :01:38.police were quicker, arriving in 10 minutes. But again the gang had
:01:39. > :01:43.fled. If they actually had more patrols and cars... They say there
:01:43. > :01:46.are four in Waverley each night. If they just had one going round
:01:46. > :01:51.Haslemere at night, which is a big area, surely that would be a
:01:51. > :01:55.deterrent. Surrey police say that after the 4th raid, police officers
:01:55. > :01:58.were deployed on strategic roads to trace the offenders. They admit
:01:58. > :02:02.that around the time the shop was first targeted they failed to
:02:02. > :02:08.respond to about a quarter of emergency calls within 15 minutes.
:02:08. > :02:12.They say the response times are now improving. But that is cold comfort
:02:13. > :02:16.to Angela French. To date nobody has been caught. You are forever
:02:16. > :02:20.thinking when you go to bed that the telephone will win in the
:02:20. > :02:25.middle of the night. It is horrible to get here and find the mess and
:02:25. > :02:29.chaos, even worse than things being taken. Are incidents like this,
:02:29. > :02:34.where police response times appear to be too slow, just bad luck or is
:02:34. > :02:38.something else going on? I have been speaking to frontline police
:02:38. > :02:42.officers from across the country. They did not want to be identified
:02:42. > :02:47.but they say that huge budget cuts to policing over the past two years
:02:48. > :02:50.are leading to longer emergency response times. Do you think that
:02:50. > :02:54.potentially police officers or members of the public could be put
:02:54. > :02:59.in danger because of these cuts? That is one thing I was discussing
:02:59. > :03:02.with my partner tonight. I think it is an absolute inevitability.
:03:02. > :03:06.felt safe in my role as a police officer for the last years but with
:03:06. > :03:10.these cuts going on I feel that if I press that emergency button on my
:03:10. > :03:15.radio, it will take longer for my colleagues to resist me.
:03:15. > :03:19.communications regularly and routinely say they have up to four
:03:19. > :03:24.emergency response jobs but quite often there are no units available.
:03:24. > :03:29.The cuts to police funding from central Government are big. 20% by
:03:29. > :03:33.2015 in England and Wales. Understandably, the police are not
:03:33. > :03:38.happy. But one influential think- tank believes it is about time the
:03:38. > :03:41.police became more efficient. think people in the emergency
:03:41. > :03:45.services and the public services have got used to steady budget
:03:45. > :03:49.increases for many years, particularly the police. So any
:03:49. > :03:54.budget cut seems quite shocking to them. But it is still the case that
:03:54. > :03:59.these services have never had more money than they have now. Huge
:03:59. > :04:04.increases in spending compared to 10 years ago, with the police
:04:04. > :04:07.having the most generous spending increases. In that time, a lot of
:04:07. > :04:12.forces, I would say, have sat on their laurels and not taken tough
:04:12. > :04:17.decisions about how they can organise themselves best. Somebody
:04:17. > :04:24.is injuring your family? The issue has become a political battlefield.
:04:24. > :04:32.The big question now is how officers on the ground to our
:04:32. > :04:35.policing in the age of austerity. Adam Ashby and Lee Spencer of
:04:35. > :04:45.emergency response officers in the Fife division of Greater Manchester
:04:45. > :04:45.
:04:45. > :04:55.Police. -- Oldham. They are on their way to help a fellow officer
:04:55. > :05:01.
:05:01. > :05:08.Our car gets there in six minutes, long enough for the situation to
:05:08. > :05:15.have calmed down. No sooner have they arrived at the station with
:05:15. > :05:20.the arrested man, but Adam and Lee are out on another call. This time
:05:20. > :05:24.it is somebody feeling suicidal. Obviously this is more appropriate
:05:24. > :05:28.for medical practitioners and police officers. But sometimes the
:05:28. > :05:32.police are the only ones available to respond. We arrive within five
:05:32. > :05:37.minutes, but before we can even get out of the car to investigate,
:05:37. > :05:43.another emergency call comes in. think we have got to go somewhere.
:05:43. > :05:51.We are on the move. Have you got a description? It is one of the pubs.
:05:51. > :05:54.There is somebody in their kicking off. Is this an emergency call?
:05:55. > :05:58.There are reports that a woman is being violent and threatening. The
:05:58. > :06:01.last Government made all police forces signed a pledge which said
:06:01. > :06:08.they had to attend her than emergencies like this within 15
:06:08. > :06:13.minutes and 20 within rural areas. -- urban emergencies. This was
:06:13. > :06:17.abandoned in a drive to reduce red tape. Even so Adam and Lee are at
:06:17. > :06:22.the call on the other side of Oldham in 10 minutes. But it is not
:06:22. > :06:27.quite the emergency they had expected. Come on, stand up. There
:06:27. > :06:33.is no sign of violence. Just a woman too drunk to look after
:06:33. > :06:37.herself. Come and sit down over here. The officers cannot leave her
:06:37. > :06:42.alone in this state. They have no choice but to take her home.
:06:42. > :06:46.much have you had to drink tonight? The officers were on a priority
:06:46. > :06:51.call, then they got this emergency call. So they had to come to this
:06:51. > :06:54.first. Things are getting busier tonight. There are only so many
:06:54. > :07:00.resources to go around and they have had to make a judgement about
:07:00. > :07:05.what to attend. The impression I get tonight is that you have not
:07:05. > :07:08.stopped. It has been one call after another. You have not even had a
:07:08. > :07:14.five-minute break. It seems like you are operating at capacity.
:07:14. > :07:18.would say that is fairly accurate. Individual officers in this
:07:19. > :07:23.division are extremely dedicated. I am not the sort of person who is
:07:23. > :07:29.going to let something bad happened to somebody, somebody get injured,
:07:29. > :07:34.property damage, just so that I can have a break. Has he seen what has
:07:34. > :07:38.been stolen from inside? He reckons it has been cleared out. Despite
:07:38. > :07:43.the cuts, Greater Manchester police are among the best performers in
:07:43. > :07:50.the country for their response times. Currently they attended 95%
:07:50. > :07:57.of all emergency calls within 15 minutes. But even they sometimes
:07:57. > :08:05.get it wrong. Last month, secondary as saw a man damaging vehicles in
:08:05. > :08:08.this street in Oldham. -- Sikander saw a man. He dialled 999 but the
:08:08. > :08:11.man started kicking down at the door to a house as he was on the
:08:11. > :08:15.telephone. I said that he was kicking the door down and he had
:08:15. > :08:18.gone into the house. Luckily the residents were not at home, but we
:08:18. > :08:22.were dreading the fact that somebody could be at home and what
:08:22. > :08:26.he could have potentially done. must have looked to you at that
:08:26. > :08:33.point like there was an immediate threat to someone. It was more than
:08:33. > :08:38.an immediate threat. By now the man was intimidating onlookers, but the
:08:38. > :08:43.police were nowhere to be seen. By the time Sikander made his call, it
:08:43. > :08:47.took them 40 minutes to arrive. The man was eventually detained, but
:08:47. > :08:51.Sikander thinks the response was not good enough. How has this left
:08:51. > :08:58.you feeling about the police? have lost confidence in the police.
:08:58. > :09:01.We think that 999 might not get an emergency response. Local officers
:09:01. > :09:09.go out to meet President and apologised. They said that human
:09:09. > :09:12.error was to blame. -- local officers came out to meet residents
:09:12. > :09:15.and apologised. The police have been telling us across the country
:09:15. > :09:19.that incidents like this with unacceptably slow police response
:09:19. > :09:22.times are happening more frequently. But the Government points to report
:09:22. > :09:27.by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary published last year
:09:27. > :09:32.that says that response times are being maintained. It turns out that
:09:32. > :09:40.report surveyed only 10 police forces out of the 43 in England and
:09:40. > :09:44.Wales about their response times. In six, they found improvements. We
:09:44. > :09:49.decided to use the Freedom of Information Act to investigate
:09:49. > :09:52.response times from every force in the UK. We found that the police
:09:52. > :10:00.emergency response times vary significantly across the country
:10:00. > :10:03.and even within force areas. Here are some of the worst areas that we
:10:03. > :10:09.have found. In the London borough of Hillingdon, 20% of emergency
:10:09. > :10:15.calls did not get a response within 15 minutes. For Derby, that figure
:10:15. > :10:19.was 19% and in Dover, 28% of emergency calls did not see a
:10:19. > :10:22.police officer on the scene within 15 minutes. When looking at
:10:22. > :10:26.response times, it is hard to compare like with like as there is
:10:26. > :10:31.no uniform way of recording statistics and each force has its
:10:31. > :10:37.own geographical differences. But they do seem to be striking
:10:37. > :10:41.disparities in response times around the country. Lord Mackenzie
:10:41. > :10:45.was a policing adviser to the last Government. He believes that there
:10:45. > :10:51.is a link between slow response times in some areas and Government
:10:51. > :10:54.cuts. It is extremely worrying. The police are not going to get it
:10:54. > :10:59.right every time but certainly I think the figures reflect the cuts
:10:59. > :11:02.in real terms. I don't think you can put any other gloss on it,
:11:02. > :11:05.quite frankly. I think the Government has clearly got to make
:11:05. > :11:13.sure that those forces that are failing are brought up to the
:11:13. > :11:19.standard of those that are not. they there at the moment? Weapons
:11:19. > :11:22.involved? One reason why Greater Manchester Police has been able to
:11:22. > :11:28.maintain its response times despite losing 900 staff could be that
:11:28. > :11:31.crime is down by 12% here. But that is not the only reason. By
:11:31. > :11:36.identifying people who use the service again and again, and
:11:36. > :11:41.getting other agencies to deal with them, the force has reduced the
:11:41. > :11:45.number of 999 calls. Now that money is tight, you have to look all the
:11:45. > :11:50.time at what you repeat the dresses are, repeat offenders, getting them
:11:50. > :11:56.early in the offending cycle. That helps take the pressure off the
:11:56. > :11:59.officers. In Manchester, the cuts will continue. I hope that it will
:11:59. > :12:03.not play out in things like emergency response but clearly the
:12:03. > :12:08.public may notice that the police station is closing. It may be when
:12:08. > :12:12.they phone us that we say, can you do it online? Do we really need to
:12:12. > :12:15.send an officer to your address? The Government declined an
:12:15. > :12:21.interview for this programme but told Panorama that the most
:12:21. > :12:25.important target is cutting crime and that is down at 4.2% last year.
:12:25. > :12:31.They have swept away red tape such as the policing pledge, they say,
:12:31. > :12:35.to help police forces burgers on their core mission, to cut crime. -
:12:35. > :12:40.- focus on their core mission. They say that they are focusing on
:12:40. > :12:43.cutting back office functions. But is it feasible to keep cutting his
:12:44. > :12:48.support staff without a noticeable impact on the front line? I think
:12:48. > :12:50.there is a limit to how much we can cut in the back office, as it were,
:12:51. > :12:55.without affecting frontline officers on the ground, frontline
:12:55. > :13:03.policing as it is called. The response is about getting to the
:13:03. > :13:07.receiving -- to the scene fairly quickly and that is about police
:13:07. > :13:12.officers on the street at any one time. Over the next two years there
:13:12. > :13:16.will be more cuts and some of them seem quite draconian. Wouldn't you
:13:16. > :13:21.be concerned that at some point we will cross a line and the public
:13:21. > :13:25.will notice a big difference? of course, but I cannot see why we
:13:25. > :13:30.are anywhere near that line yet. The police have had 30 years of
:13:30. > :13:33.steady spending increases. Their budgets compared to 10 years ago
:13:33. > :13:37.are two-thirds higher than they used to be. We are nowhere near
:13:37. > :13:41.that level, even with the cuts that they are planning to bring in. The
:13:41. > :13:51.hope is that this financial pressure, which is overdue, against
:13:51. > :13:55.the police forces to think again When it doms getting to you in an
:13:55. > :14:00.emergency it's not just the police feels the heat. Get out, stay out,
:14:00. > :14:04.call 999. Traditionally the Fire Service have the fastest response
:14:04. > :14:10.times of all the emergency services. That makes sense, given a house
:14:10. > :14:13.fire can double in size every minute if it's left unattended. Yet
:14:13. > :14:19.Government figures out this summer show the average response time it a
:14:19. > :14:23.house fire has gone up by 22% in the past ten years. That means
:14:23. > :14:30.people are waiting more than a minute longer for help to arrive. A
:14:30. > :14:36.minute that could mean the difference between life and death.
:14:36. > :14:40.Coventry and a fire in a factory is spreading quickly. West Midlands
:14:40. > :14:47.Fire Service are on the scene within six minutes. At its height
:14:48. > :14:51.over 100 firefighters are deployed. There are propain cylinders outside
:14:51. > :14:54.the building as well. For West Midlands fire brigade dealing with
:14:54. > :14:57.an incident like this is getting increasingly difficult. In the last
:14:57. > :15:03.two years, this region has been hit with cuts double the average in
:15:03. > :15:08.England. More are on the way. The fire chief here is trying to raise
:15:08. > :15:13.money and recognises the need for efficiency savings. In his worst
:15:13. > :15:22.case scenario he may have to close 11 of their 30 fire stations and
:15:22. > :15:26.Laos a third of his firefighters. What effect will it have on this
:15:26. > :15:29.region if you lose a third of firefighters? People will be at
:15:29. > :15:33.risk. The information will be more at risk. My firefighters will be
:15:33. > :15:36.more at risk. It will take us longer to marshal our resources to
:15:37. > :15:46.get them there in sufficient numbers to make that critical
:15:46. > :15:48.intervention. Under that pressure, how can a fire brigade like West
:15:48. > :15:56.Midlands cut costs and response times? Could the answer be
:15:56. > :16:00.replacing up to a third of these with these? This is known as a
:16:00. > :16:04.brigade response vehicle. Frbgts it is saving money on fuel in
:16:04. > :16:10.comparison to front-line appliance. They're nimble in traffic as well.
:16:10. > :16:13.We are able to get to an incident quicker. We may be able to
:16:13. > :16:20.alleviate that incident going further out of control with some
:16:20. > :16:24.quick actions. For firefighters on the ground, though, there are
:16:24. > :16:28.concerns about the Brigade Response Vehicles or BRVs as they're known.
:16:28. > :16:34.They hold only a minute's worth of water or foam. They're only
:16:34. > :16:38.designed to put out small fires. You could have a BRV turn up at a
:16:38. > :16:42.big incident and we've got a responsibility to help people. You
:16:42. > :16:47.know, if they're in a dangerous scenario, we need to be in there
:16:47. > :16:51.and help them. We're going to be putting lives, I know you shouldn't,
:16:51. > :16:55.you want to go in there. This would have been a great as
:16:55. > :16:59.well as, but we will have toint deuce it as an instead of. What's
:16:59. > :17:04.the problem with that? There won't be the same weight of attack. They
:17:04. > :17:08.won't deal with the full range of tasks that a current engine does.
:17:08. > :17:11.These are quite good vehicles. They're perhaps coming to these
:17:11. > :17:14.choices sooner than we would have done if it wasn't for the financial
:17:14. > :17:18.climate. The Government is cutting funding by just over 3% in England.
:17:18. > :17:23.The brigades that cover the big urban areas are funded by both
:17:23. > :17:27.central and local government. The local authorities say because their
:17:27. > :17:31.funding is decreasing, they have little but to make cuts too. That's
:17:31. > :17:38.why brigades like West Midlands are so concerned. Ministers say the
:17:38. > :17:44.public has nothing to worry about. Do you believe that large cuts
:17:44. > :17:48.could cost lives, as some firefighters believe they could?
:17:48. > :17:57.I don't believe that the evidence demonstrates that either. What we
:17:57. > :18:02.have seen is a consistent downward number, downward trajectory in the
:18:02. > :18:07.number of fatalities and injuries. At some point don't you have to
:18:07. > :18:13.shout stop? If indeed in one area 11 out of 38 fire stations closed,
:18:13. > :18:16.surely at some point you step in and say, this is unacceptable.
:18:16. > :18:21.fire authority has to meet its statutory obligations under the
:18:21. > :18:25.Fire Services act. It's never been suggested by any brigade, chief
:18:25. > :18:28.officer, that isn't the case. The guardians of how that's delivered
:18:28. > :18:37.at a local level are the Democratically elected local
:18:37. > :18:42.Councilors. You stay there and the ambulance is on its way. So, what
:18:42. > :18:46.about the third emergency service? Funding for the NHS has been ring-
:18:46. > :18:52.fenced. So you'd imagine that the Ambulance Service wouldn't have to
:18:52. > :18:56.worry about cuts. In fact, to meet rising costs, many ambulance trusts
:18:56. > :19:03.have been asked to make huge efficiency savings. They too are
:19:03. > :19:10.under pressure. Six weeks ago, Patricia Warbey had a particularly
:19:10. > :19:17.nasty fall at home. She fell onto the floor, smashing her knee onto
:19:17. > :19:22.the floor quite hard. She's got a replacement knee caps in both knees.
:19:22. > :19:27.And she couldn't get back up. She knew she had hurt herself quite
:19:28. > :19:32.badly. Unable to move, Patricia used her mobile to dial 999. Then
:19:32. > :19:36.she waited, and waited. Always thinking the ambulance would arrive
:19:36. > :19:45.any moment. After an hour with no sign of help arriving, she called
:19:45. > :19:50.her daughter. Ten minutes later, I come to the house and we come in.
:19:50. > :19:55.The Ambulance Service wasn't here. As there was still no ambulance
:19:55. > :20:00.Melissa dialled 999 herself and not just once. She says over 40 minutes
:20:00. > :20:06.she rang three times. Each time she was told that as her mum was
:20:06. > :20:11.breathing and not bleeding, she wasn't a priority. I was scared for
:20:11. > :20:14.her. It was horrible. It was really, really frightening. It's just not
:20:14. > :20:17.nice watching somebody that you love lying there in pain and
:20:17. > :20:22.there's nothing you can do. You have people on the other end of the
:20:22. > :20:28.phone telling you that actually, that person lying there, that you
:20:28. > :20:33.love dearly, isn't critical enough to come out and help straight away.
:20:33. > :20:39.The ambulance arrived nearly two hours after the original call. By
:20:39. > :20:49.then, Melissa's mum was shaking violently. I was led to believe
:20:49. > :20:56.that if you phoned 999 an ambulance would arrive within 10, 15, 20
:20:56. > :20:59.minutes, half an hour at the moment. That's what my preconception was.
:20:59. > :21:05.Patricia is still in hospital recovering from an operation to
:21:05. > :21:09.repair her broken leg. East of England Ambulance Trust say the
:21:09. > :21:14.information given to them was that there were no serious injuries. So
:21:14. > :21:18.the patient was given a one-hour response time. The caller was told
:21:18. > :21:24.to Fonebak if symptoms arose. They say as soon as they received new
:21:24. > :21:27.information indicating an emergency, they dispatched an ambulance. But
:21:27. > :21:32.there is some good news for Britain's Ambulance Service.
:21:32. > :21:38.Earlier this year, it was announced for the first time all 12 trusts in
:21:38. > :21:42.England hit a key Government target. They attended 75% of life-
:21:42. > :21:51.threatening emergencies within eight minutes. One reason behind
:21:51. > :21:55.the improvement is a measure called enhanced clinical triage, that
:21:55. > :22:02.involves medical clinician as sesing a call to see how quick a
:22:02. > :22:09.response is needed. Some cases people may be rung back and asked
:22:09. > :22:13.further questions. Some trusts say this can help with some 900 calls a
:22:13. > :22:17.week. You can't see the patients. Not all patients are fully aware
:22:17. > :22:20.when they're in pain. There have been a number of occasions that the
:22:20. > :22:25.triage hasn't worked and patients have been in difficulty and they
:22:25. > :22:30.should have had a faster response. We've spoken to other
:22:30. > :22:34.representatives from four trusts and we've also spoken to five front
:22:34. > :22:39.line paramedics in stations around the country. Now they say that they
:22:39. > :22:43.and their colleagues are concerned that clinical triage can be used to
:22:43. > :22:49.hide failings in response times and to massage the success rate in
:22:49. > :22:53.hitting that eight-minute target. They didn't want to appear on
:22:53. > :22:59.camera for fear of loseing their jobs, but they allowed us to use
:22:59. > :23:02.their statements. They told us they've had genuine emergencies
:23:02. > :23:07.downgraded when the ambulance wasn't going to meet the deadline.
:23:07. > :23:11.While some believe that low priority calls, where an ambulance
:23:11. > :23:15.happens to be close by, are being upgraded to an emergency. We are
:23:15. > :23:19.seeing jobs where they're being reprioritised. We know why it's
:23:19. > :23:23.been downgraded because we're not hitting the targets if everything
:23:23. > :23:27.remained correctly prioritised. Instead of life threatening, you
:23:27. > :23:31.can get to it and it turns out to be nothing of a sort. It was put
:23:31. > :23:34.down as that possibly because you were near to the call and you'll
:23:34. > :23:38.get there within eight minutes lot of colleagues are wondering, is
:23:38. > :23:43.this being done on purpose? I can't prove that, certainly from
:23:43. > :23:46.experience after ten years in the job, it points in that direction.
:23:46. > :23:50.The Department of Health told us that they have no evidence that
:23:50. > :23:54.trusts are trying to meet targets in this way. But they said if they
:23:54. > :23:58.were, it would be taken extremely seriously and care the quality
:23:58. > :24:01.commission would be asked to investigate. They also told us that
:24:01. > :24:05.callers may well be put in different categories according to
:24:05. > :24:12.the information they give, but that the aim is to provide the most
:24:12. > :24:15.appropriate clinical response. One indicator of how well ambulance
:24:15. > :24:20.trusts are doing is in how they deal with some of the most serious
:24:20. > :24:24.cases. Like stroke. When a stroke strikes, the damage spreads like a
:24:24. > :24:29.fire in the brain. This Government campaign highlighted the importance
:24:29. > :24:39.of recognising the symptoms of a stroke and calling an ambulance.
:24:39. > :24:39.
:24:39. > :24:44.When stroke strikes, act fast. Acting fast is the key to treating
:24:45. > :24:50.strokes. This is Nikki Camp. Being treated quickly potentially saved
:24:50. > :24:54.her life and probably saved her from lifelong disabilities. Fear of
:24:54. > :24:58.having something permanent when I have the next 40, touch wood, years
:24:58. > :25:04.of my life left to live with potential speech disability or a
:25:04. > :25:08.physical disability trying to raise a family, not being able to work
:25:08. > :25:13.again, or the worst case scenario thaw don't survive. The treatment
:25:13. > :25:21.is more successful the quicker it's given. The ambulance got to her
:25:21. > :25:28.within ten minutes and she was at a specialist unit within the hour.
:25:28. > :25:31.Would you make a grip for me. new statistics reveal many stroke
:25:31. > :25:36.victims aren't as fortunate as this and end up waiting too long. These
:25:36. > :25:40.figures for England have only been made public since 2011, so it's
:25:41. > :25:45.impossible to say if things are getting better or worse. What is
:25:45. > :25:50.clear is that there's room for improvement. Only 63% of stroke
:25:50. > :25:59.victims are making it to an acute unit within the crucial first hour.
:25:59. > :26:04.So much for fast. If we're getting 63% of patients to hyperacute
:26:04. > :26:08.stroke units within the hour, then we're failing 37% of patients with
:26:08. > :26:11.strokes within England. That is a cause for concern, because we've
:26:12. > :26:19.all got family and we all know people that may have suffered with
:26:19. > :26:23.stroke. We would want to identify them quickly. -- and ensure they're
:26:23. > :26:28.in the appropriate place as quickly as possible. The Department of
:26:28. > :26:32.Health in England means specialist care means there are fewer fatality
:26:32. > :26:35.from stroke each year. They say trusts are performing well but
:26:35. > :26:38.admit these indicators show some areas where improvement can be made.
:26:38. > :26:44.They say they'll work with local NHS organisations to make sure that
:26:44. > :26:48.happens. The thought of an ambulance not arriving in time or
:26:48. > :26:52.not arriving at all, perhaps in some cases, would be pretty
:26:52. > :26:57.unimaginable. You expect to dial 999, ask for an ambulance and for
:26:57. > :27:04.an ambulance to be dispatched and to arrive in a timely fashion.
:27:04. > :27:07.it hadn't turned up, we'd have been, well, I might not... Yeah, it's
:27:07. > :27:11.pretty unimaginable. I try not to think about that. Those who run the
:27:11. > :27:15.emergency services know that the challenges of the next few years
:27:15. > :27:20.will be enormous. And right across the country, they're finding ways
:27:20. > :27:28.to meet the new mantra of the age of austerity, doing more with less.