This is quite a shocking and embarrasing story for the service involved, but I can't say I'm very surprised. With such pressure to meet ORCON, services are cutting corners just about anywhere possible. After all, haven't we heard the rumors that some services will soon start replacing their technicians with Emergency Care Assistants - in fact, some probably already have! The decisions taken by this service, with the sole aim of meeting government targets rather than improving patient care, have backfired on them and hopefully it will be a wake up call to other services that may have similar ideas. A crew in my area were recently hauled into see the station officer because they took 8 mins 33 seconds to get to a 999 call. No consideration seems to have been given to the distance from the station to the call (8 mins 33 secs is pretty good to that location (in my opinion). The fact that the patient survived his cardiac arrest also doesn't seem to make a difference. It's true what they say - ORCON is all you really need to worry about, as long as you get there in less than 8 minutes you can do what you want to the patient! Steven www.confessionsofanambulanceman.blogspot.com