Figures released today show that the all-Wales Welsh Ambulance response time target been missed for September.
The eight-minute target has not been met since May 2012.
The Welsh Government’s target is for 65% of ambulances to respond to Category A (immediately life-threatening) calls within eight minutes, yet figures for September show that only 62.9% of ambulances arrived within that time.
In England and Scotland the target for the same priority call is 75%.
Kirsty Williams, Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, commented: “Despite the best efforts of the hard working front line paramedics, another month goes by and yet another health target missed by Welsh Labour.
“It is bad enough that people i n Wales have to put up with a government that is less ambitious than those in England and Scotland, but for those unambitious targets to not be met just compounds that misery.
“Labour MP Ann Clwyd is right when she says Wales is behind England in every instance. The First Minister and his Health Minister need to stop burying their heads in the sand and start delivering the health service the people of Wales deserve.”
“We have introduced a number of measures to improve our responsiveness and it is encouraging to see that we are now showing signs of continuous improvement.
“We would like to reassure the public that the Trust is firmly committed to delivering the improvement aims of its ‘Working Together for Success’ modernisation programme to provide the best quality of care for the people of Wales.
“We invite the public to support NHS Wales’ Choose Well campaign, so that busy emergency services are available to those who need them most urgently. For non-emergencies, please consider calling NHS Direct Wales on 0845 46 47 or visiting www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk for free, confidential health advice.
“We ask the public only to dial 999 for life-threatening and serious illnesses and injuries – let’s keep emergency ambulances for emergencies.”
The statistics can be found at:
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “September was a busy month for us, with the service taking 33,677 emergency calls, with more than a third of these - 13,200 calls - being of the most serious in nature.
“We have introduced a number of measures to improve our responsiveness and it is encouraging to see that we are now showing signs of continuous improvement.
“We would like to reassure the public that the Trust is firmly committed to delivering the improvement aims of its ‘Working Together for Success’ modernisation programme to provide the best quality of care for the people of Wales.
“We invite the public to support NHS Wales’ Choose Well campaign, so that busy emergency services are available to those who need them most urgently. For non-emergencies, please consider calling NHS Direct Wales on 0845 46 47 or visiting www.nhsdirect.wales.nhs.uk for free, confidential health advice.
“We ask the public only to dial 999 for life-threatening and serious illnesses and injuries – let’s keep emergency ambulances for emergencies.”
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