Andrew Dismore

Andrew Dismore AM, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Hendon and London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden  challenged London Mayor Boris Johnson over the poor record of emergency services’ attendance times on his watch: video https://vimeo.com/109700158

Mr Dismore  told the Mayor that all the emergency services  in the capital are under terrible strain.

Mr Dismore particularly focussed on the London Ambulance Service. Their target is to attend 75% of calls in 8 minutes, but across London in August, just 62% of calls met this target time. In Barnet just 56% of calls had a response on time. Now the Ambulance Service has decided that 10% of calls won’t be answered at all, due to the pressures on the service.

 

Mr Dismore said to the Mayor:

‘If you had broken the ankle of that 9 year old boy you fouled in your public relations football game, how long do you think it would have taken for an ambulance to come?  Isn’t it time instead of tackling 9 year olds, you tackled these health inequalities in the Ambulance Service?’

Mr Dismore also questioned the Mayor over the consequences of his cuts. He said:

‘The  Fire Brigade  has lost 10 stations and 12 fire engines

‘Barnet  has  the second worse Police emergency attendance record  in London – rooted in the red in the Mayor’s own  spreadsheet league table- it’s  been there for so long if they were a football club they would have been relegated.’

Mr Dismore told the Mayor that it was not  the police’s fault, it was the Mayor’s. Due to the Mayor’s cuts, there aren’t enough officers. Compared to May 2010 when there were 595 police officers in Barnet, we now have just 545 –  50 fewer . PCSOs, are also down from 177 to 86.

Mr Dismore referred the Mayor to real individual calls, that were not met in the target 15 minutes . These included, in June, in  Camden, 58 minutes to attend a knife incident and in  Barnet, 67 minutes to attend an incident involving children.

After questioning the Mayor, Mr Dismore  added:

‘The Mayor is woefully complacent about the performance of our emergency services. Our paramedics, firefighters and police officers work tremendously hard  and professionally to do a good job, but they are under terrible strains as  their numbers and resources are just not enough to meet the demand on them, illustrated by the continuing failures to meet  the attendance  time targets.

‘It is not good enough for the Mayor to blame the public. The cuts he and his Government have imposed on the emergency services are putting people at risk. He needs to recognise this  and rethink  the effect his cuts are having  on the safety of the public.’