Army ‘cannot keep rescuing’ Welsh ambulance service

SOLDIERS cannot keep rescuing the ambulance service, the Welsh Secretary has said as the military prepares to deploy for the fifth time since the pandemic began.

Simon Hart said the Welsh Government needed to understand that the Armed Services are not an “openended” resource to ease problems with the Welsh ambulance service after its latest request for Military Aid to the Civilian Authorities (Maca).

Mr Hart said: “The purpose of Maca requests are for absolutely extraordinary circumstances, specifically in this instance related to Covid, and we just need to make sure that we adhere to that and that the Welsh Government don’t think, ‘Well actually, you know, we don’t really have to do anything else because every time we get a s--- storm, we can put in a Maca request and soldiers will come to our rescue’.

“That would be the wrong solution to the longer-term issues.”

He made the comments as soldiers from the 4th Regiment, Royal Logistics Corps, prepared to go to Wales today. A second group made up of RAF and Royal Navy personnel will be sent later, making 110 service personnel in total.

In August, the Welsh ambulance service recorded its second worst response times to immediately life-threatening “red” calls since targets were introduced in 2015.

Just over half of respondents to 999 calls arrived on scene within eight minutes in that month, below the target of 65 per cent, which has not been met for more than a year.

The military will help until the end of November, and Mr Hart warned that they could not stay beyond then.

“If the Welsh Government comes back to us in November, we haven’t got an open-ended ability, an open-ended resource, an unlimited resource for non Covid-related pressure,” he said.

“So, in other words, the Welsh Government is going to have to resolve this problem within their own ambulance service and our point is to say that time may be coming and they need to make the necessary preparations.”

Mr Hart also called on Baroness Morgan of Ely, the Welsh minister for health and social services, to fix the “long-term and structural” issues within the service.

The Welsh Government said that Mr Hart “proactively” offered Army support to Wales last month. “We are extremely grateful to the MOD personnel for their assistance which, as with all Maca arrangements, will be time limited,” the spokesman said.