 Seven counties failed to meet the 60% response target in April |
Assembly Member Kirsty Williams has written to Health Minister Edwina Hart urging action over ambulance response times in Powys. Brecon and Radnorshire's Liberal Democrat AM said the county's emergency service was failing to meet targets. Figures show that 47.8% of ambulances in Powys attended calls within eight minutes, compared to a 60% target. Six other counties also missed the target. The Welsh Ambulance Service said it was working hard to improve response times. According to official figures for April, the latest available, ambulance services in seven counties were below the 60% target set by local health boards. The Wales average was 65.1%.  |  Our hardworking ambulance staff...simply do not have adequate resources to meet these harsh demands |
A spokesman for Ms Hart said a "variation in response times" in Wales was "not acceptable". Ms Williams said: "Whilst the Powys figures show a marginal improvement on the 45.4% of last month, they are still far from meeting the grade. "The large and rural [county of] Powys may be at a logistical disadvantage to smaller, urban and more manageable areas but this is no excuse for putting people's lives at risk. "Our hardworking ambulance staff are struggling against a poor road infrastructure, a dispersed and aging population and simply do not have adequate resources to meet these harsh demands." Ms Williams added that she had written to Ms Hart asking her to "take urgent action to tackle these consistently low figures in Powys". Andy Roughton of the Welsh Ambulance Service said: "We have been working hard to improve response times across Powys, and these times are improving slowly, but we still have a long way to go to achieve the national target." "We appreciate that we need to look at developing different models of care to tackle the geographical difficulties we face on a daily basis so we have been working closely with Powys LHB (local health board) as part of an ambulance partnership board looking at solutions to the challenges in providing ambulance services across Powys." Review Mr Roughton added that 11 ambulance technicians were currently being recruited and nine would eventually work in Powys. Health Minister Ms Hart said there had been a small improvement in performance, but there continued to be "variation in response times across Wales, which is not acceptable". Her spokesman said the minister had commissioned a review of the ambulance service, a draft version of which was being finalised. He added: "Once she receives the final document, she will consider what further action to take to improve performance." Ambulance services in Carmarthenshire, the Vale of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend and Gwynedd also failed to meet the 60% target for arriving at an emergency within eight minutes in April. The top two performing counties were Denbighshire (77.3%) and Conwy (76.5%).
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