Ambulance service meets target in ‘busiest’ month

THE Welsh Ambulance Service has met its response target for the most serious calls – despite experiencing its “busiest month on record” in March.

The NHS Trust reached 65.7% of immediately lifethreatening emergencies within eight minutes in March, exceeding the 65% target set by the Welsh Government.

It’s a slight dip in performance compared with February when 65.8% of emergency responses – also known as “Red” calls – arrived at the scene within eight minutes.

Ambulance crews have now met their emergency response targets every month since a new clinical model was introduced in October 2015.

Under the new model, those patients in imminent danger of death will get a life-saving response as quickly as possible

But all other patients will have a response based on their clinical needs, which could mean a referral to NHS Direct Wales or their GP rather than a trip to hospital. That means around 150 a day are now subject to an eight-minute target compared with around 500 before the changes were made.

Responding to the figures, Labour’s Vaughan Gething said: “Last month was the busiest on record for the Welsh Ambulance Service – it received a 999 call almost every minute of every day during March.

“The ambulance service responded to 65.7% of the most serious and life-threatening calls within eight minutes in March, exceeding the 65% target. The average response time was seven minutes and 15 seconds.

“I would like to thank everyone in the Welsh Ambulance Service for their hard work during this exceptionally busy winter period.”

The Welsh Ambulance Service responded to 1,885 Red incidents in March. Crews responded to 71.4% of them within nine minutes and 76.1% within 10 minutes.