Ambulance times are improving says government

While recent improvements in performance are encouraging, more needs to be done to ensure performance improves in the long term. The Minister for Health and Social Services has accepted a number of recommendations made following the recent review of Welsh Ambulance Services, with focus on delivering a clinical service to ensure patients receive the right response, at the right time and in the right place.

There is wide agreement that the eight minute target should not be seen as the only measure of ambulance performance. While speed is particularly important for some conditions such as cardiac arrest, there is little clinical evidence to suggest other less acute conditions would benefit from a blanket eight minute response. We are currently exploring how ambulance service performance can be measured to better reflect the outcome for the patient, not just the speed of arrival.