The new system has cut response times

By 2008, ambulance crews will have to reach two-thirds of all 999 calls within eight minutes.

Health Minister Malcolm Chisholm opened the last of the new emergency medical dispatch centres on Monday.

The Paisley unit has already been in action, co-ordinating a fleet of ambulances sent to the factory blast in Maryhill earlier this month.

It employs 80 workers and handles calls for the west and south west of Scotland.

The same number of calls are coming through to ambulance crews in general but the important thing now is that that the emergency calls and urgent calls do come through a whole lot quicker Andy Moir Paramedic officer

The Scottish Ambulance Service has hailed the �22m revamp a success.

Managers said the new control centres and call prioritisation had already cut a minute off average response times.

Director of operations Phil Spence said: "Shaving a whole minute off ambulance response times is absolutely vital.

"There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the faster you get to someone, particularly if they've got chest pain or a heart attack, the better their chance of survival and really after 12 minutes those chances go down a great deal."

Lanarkshire-based paramedic officer Andy Moir said the new system of prioritising calls was proving successful.

Calls are being prioritised

He said: "The same number of calls are coming through to ambulance crews in general but the important thing now is that the emergency calls and urgent calls do come through a whole lot quicker."

Mr Moir said the new system proved effective when crews received calls to the Maryhill explosion.