In an emergency, every second can be life-changing. According to the state's agreement with SOS Alarm, the average response time for the emergency number 112 may not exceed eight seconds. No one should ever have to wait longer than half a minute.
During last summer, the call queue was around 35 seconds instead. Average. Sometimes the waiting times were significantly longer than that, according to statistics that SOS Alarm produced for DN. Close to 150 calls were only answered after more than seven minutes.
SOS Alarm has subsequently gone through all calls during the critical summer months. The alarm operator's own investigation points out five specific incidents where the waiting time may have affected the outcome for patients. It concerns five people who died – one from drowning and four from cardiac arrest. According to SOS Alarm, it cannot be ruled out that the long waiting times may have played a role.
The response times for the five cases varied between 3 and 4 minutes.
We cannot say with confidence that there is not a risk when a patient or someone in need of help ends up in such a long waiting time at 112. We are now working hard to improve our response times. We see a positive development during this year, says Camilla Nylén, director of operations at SOS Alarm.
Five people died in the summer of 2022, where the waiting times may have had an impact. In the case of the patient who drowned, those who called 112 had themselves seen the person fall in. Several people had jumped in to try to save, but at first did not find anyone. The waiting time on 112 was closer to four minutes. Ambulance and fire brigade were nevertheless quickly on the scene, approximately eleven minutes after the person had fallen in.
SOS Alarm takes this situation particularly seriously as it believes that a three-minute delay may have affected the time for cardiopulmonary resuscitation as help was on the scene so quickly and the drowning was witnessed”.
According to SOS Alarm, the long waiting times in the summer of 2022 were due, among other things, to the effects of the pandemic and the increased call pressure. Since then, a number of measures have been taken. During January to May this year, waiting times were certainly significantly shorter – an average of 12.5 seconds – but still longer than the target of eight seconds.
