Slowest ambulance times since 2011
Posted: December 31, 2014
Posted in: Medical Negligence
New figures have revealed that the number of ambulances making the target response times have fallen to the lowest level in three years. The Welsh Ambulance Service reached 51% of urgent emergency responses within eight minutes, 14 percentage points lower than the 65% national target. In October, 55.5% of called ambulances reached the scene within the time target, whereas October 2013 was the last time the service met the 65% target.
The figures, which were released on Tuesday 30 December, showed that the calls made in November were up by 5% on the calls made in November 2013. 36,091 calls were made in November, of which 14,061 were immediately life-threatening, ‘category A’. The ambulance service highlighted this increase in calls, both general and immediately life-threatening.
“Not where anyone would like them to be”
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesperson said that the delayed response times are being looked into. Gordon Roberts, interim national head of operations, said: “We absolutely recognise that our response times are not where anyone would like them to be.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson pointed out that this is a difficult time for the ambulance service and ambulance services across the UK. He said that the service is doing the best they can to respond quickly to all life-threatening calls and get people to hospital.
The government gave the service £7.5m earlier this year to recruit an additional 120 frontline staff. 70 have been appointed since April, with another 12 having started in December. There has also been a £4m investment in new ambulances.
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