Critical issue: Fire Services Director Lam Chun-man (centre) says priority dispatch will provide quicker response in critical cases.

A priority dispatch system for ambulances could cut response times to nine minutes, similar to international best practice, the Fire Services Department says.

Releasing a consultancy report today, Fire Services Director Lam Chun-man said priority dispatch will provide quicker response in critical cases.

If the system is adopted, high-priority calls, such as heart attacks, will be responded to three minutes faster.

The department's pledge is presently 12 minutes for all types of calls. The report said for critical calls, this is outside international recommendations. It said many calls in Hong Kong are non-critical and consume resources needed to respond to critical cases.

Priority dispatch will enable communications personnel to categorise and prioritise the response after questioning the caller.

The report recommends the following response times for five call categories:

* Echo - critical cases - nine minutes;

* Delta - life threatening cases - nine minutes;

* Charlie - serious but non-life threatening - 15 minutes;

* Bravo - non-life threatening and less serious - 20 minutes; and,

* Alpha - non-emergencies - 30 minutes.

For categories Echo, Delta and Charlie the compliance targets are 90% of calls. Internal goals instead of pledges are recommended to be set for categories Bravo and Alpha.

Mr Lam said the 90% compliance target for a response time of nine minutes for critical calls is in line with international best practice.

Implementation of the system will cost about $32.1 million, including acquisition and training costs, with an estimated annual recurrent cost of $5 million.

The Hospital Authority backs the system, saying a form of triage to ensure healthcare is provided to more critical patients first is a logical move.