Ambulance targets missed

Welsh ambulance response targets have been missed for the 13th month in a row, according to figures released by the Welsh Government today.

Last month 62.6% of emergency responses to Category A (immediately life-threatening) calls arrived at the scene within eight minutes - the target is 65%.

The Welsh Government said 80% of Category A calls received an emergency response within 12 minutes, and 94% within 20 minutes.

The Welsh Government has responded to the latest figures which show ambulances here have missed their response time targets for the 12th month in a row.

The Wales Ambulance Service has failed to meet its response time target for life-threatening calls for the 12th successive month.

The latest figures for May show 62.5% of ambulances arrived at the scene of life-threatening calls within 8 minutes. The target is 65%.

But this figure is up on April's figure.

Ambulances responded to 80% of calls within 12 minutes, and 94% within 20 minutes.

The Welsh Government says more needs to be done to raise the performance of ambulance response times. Figures out today reveal they are still not on target for the eleventh month in a row.

Latest ambulance performance figures show an improvement on March but are still below the all-Wales targets for the eleventh successive month.

Statistics from the Welsh Government show an increase in emergency calls in April by over 6 per cent on the previous year.

However only 57.2% of ambulance crews were at the scene of 'immediately life-threatening' calls within 8 minutes - up almost 4% on the previous month of March - but still not meeting the government's target of 65%.

Wales' Health Minister has said he will make key decisions about the future of the Welsh Ambulance Service before the Assemly's half-term recess.

Assembly Members were debating a Welsh Government-commissioned review, carried out by Professor Siobhan McClelland and published last week.

Sweeping proposals included the end to an all-Wales ambulance service, which could instead by run at local health board level.

"We need to move quickly, we have to move realistically as well", Mark Drakeford said. "Some of the recommendations in the review will produce complexity in implementation."

Opposition parties in the Assembly have reacted with scepticism to the Welsh Government's announcement of £9.5m investment to upgrade Wales' ambulance fleet. The Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams called the spending 'a fig-leaf' to distract from Labour's 'poor record' with the service.

Conservative Darren Millar, the Shadow Health Minister, echoed that saying that the service needs more ambulances, more paramedics and a greater role for the air ambulance. He said,

Assembly Members will discuss the McLelland report into the problems facing the Ambulance service during a government debate in the Senedd this afternoon.

Almost £9.5m will be spent on "a major upgrade" of the ambulance fleet in Wales.

The funding was announced the Welsh Government, ahead of an Assembly debate on a critical review of the Welsh Ambulance Service this afternoon.

110 old vehicles will be replaced by:

• 49 emergency ambulances and High Dependency Services
• 46 Rapid Response Vehicles and Emergency Practitioner Vehicles
• 3 Patient Care Services
• 5 Health Courier Services
• 7 Specialist Vehicles (used for command and control, fleet care, driver training and major incident support)

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Assembly members will debate the the state of the Welsh Ambulance Service following the publication of a service review last week.

The review, commissioned by the Welsh Government and carried out by Professor Siobhan McClelland, found the ambulance service has consistently missed its targets for responding to emergency calls.