The HSE has appointed Mr. Robert Morton as Director and Dr. Cathal O’Donnell as Medical Director of the National Ambulance Service.
Mr. Morton was formerly a Chief Ambulance Officer with the HSE Midlands Area. Dr. O’Donnell is a consultant in emergency medicine at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick and has been appointed on a secondment basis to the ambulance service.
Mr. Mark Doyle, consultant in emergency medicine at Waterford Regional Hospital has been appointed Deputy Medical Director to the service on a part-time basis.
The HSE says these appointments have arisen as part of the strategic development of the National Ambulance Service nationwide in response to developments including the reconfiguration of acute hospital services, the roll-out of the Clinical Care Programmes and the publication by HIQA of “Response Times and Quality Standards for Pre-Hospital Emergency Care.”
The reconfiguration of ambulance command and control centres is being progressed under the Croke Park Agreement. It involves moving from eight regional centres to two national centres, one live and one back up centre.
