Alan Healey, of Marina Drive, Brixham, writes: After having spent 40 years in the Ambulance Service as a crew member on the road, working in the control room, then as senior superintendent in overall charge of the control room, on special operations and in senior management, I feel I must comment about the extended response times, about which there is a lot of talk. Emergency calls had a response time of seven minutes from call to attendance on scene in urban areas and 19 minutes in extended rural areas. The service in which I worked had large urban areas as well as a large rural area, and our response times were very rarely less than 95 per cent. The idea put forward now of extending the eight-minute response, in some cases to 19 minutes, is really going to cause much suffering, worry for ­relatives and in some cases a more serious outcome. The idea has been put ­forward from the Association of Chief Ambulance Officers, and the health minister probably has no idea of the problems this will cause. The idea behind this seems to me a means of making the response times look better, because at the moment they are not good in most services throughout the country. I have to admit that there are more calls each year, but also more resources are being ­provided, and that is what should be the prime move to get more vehicles and staff. The NHS has not got money to throw around, but more is required in some areas. We had rapid-response ­vehicles many years ago, but on arrival of a fully crewed ambulance they left the scene and were available for another call. Only on rare occasions did the initial response vehicle remain on-scene. This does not seem to happen these days. Some control room staff these days appear to lack any 'on-road' ambulance experience before going into control work, and this must cause friction at times when the situation at an incident cannot be appreciated as to the difficulty a crew could be experiencing. Please do not think I am belittling the service – the lads and lasses are doing a great job under difficult situations. My plea to those on the road is: please let us know in plenty of time when on an emergency call – we can then have more time to pull over to clear the way for you. I hope this does not fall on deaf ears, but please think again about the response times, think ahead and see the ­dangers and distress. Good health and happiness to all in the service for 2015.