Ambulances fail to reach targets

The ambulance service was told it must improve in June

The Welsh Ambulance Service is still failing to reach its targets, the latest performance figures show.

Response times to the top priority emergencies have worsened from the previous month, according to figures for the Welsh assembly government.

In August, only 59.4% of Category A emergencies received a response within the eight minute target

In June, Health Minister Edwina Hart demanded improvements and gave the trust six months to turn itself around.

The August figure on response times for Category A emergencies was down 3.6% on the previous month and short of the 65% target.

There was also a drop in the number of ambulances reaching the scene on time.

Bullying culture

Only 85.4% of ambulance arrived at the scene within the specified time - short of the 95% target and again down 5.1% since August 2007.

The latest figures show:

• There were almost 27,000 emergency calls, up 4.2% compared with August 2007.

• 59.4% of first responses to immediately life-threatening emergency (Category A) calls arrived within eight minutes, 64.3% within nine minutes and 68.8% within 10 minutes.

• 85.4% of Category A calls and 79.9% of Category B calls resulted in an ambulance arriving at the scene within the target times.

• 80.3% of urgent journeys arrived not more than 15 minutes later than the requested arrival time.

• Ambulances arriving within eight minutes ranged from 42.1% in Powys to 78.8% in Merthyr Tydfil. The average in Wales was 59.4%.

In June, the assembly government told the ambulance service it had six months to reach performance targets.

It followed a review which found evidence of a "bullying culture" and poor morale amongst staff.

Ms Hart noted overall performance improvements but said response times were "far from acceptable" in many areas.

At the time the trust said more needed to be done but it was putting plans into place.

The trust has been asked for a comment on the latest figures.

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Jenny Randerson said it was "a deep disappointment" but added that she had said "time and time again" that the minister must find a way to free the service from debt repayments it had to make year on year.

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