Shanghai will strengthen its management of pre-hospital emergency care and improve the efficiency of emergency work, according to the city's health department.

Patients should be transferred to hospitals nearest to their homes and, when an ambulance arrives at a hospital, medical staff should complete the transition within 10 minutes, according to a regulation released by the Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission earlier this month.

The summer heat has brought high demand for ambulances in the city. Statistics from Shanghai Medical Emergency Center show the city's ambulances were dispatched more than 7,000 times last week, with almost 1,100 callouts in one day at peak time.