Welsh Ambulance Service to tackle poor response times

8 Jan 09
The Welsh Ambulance Service is introducing more overtime shifts and streamlined admissions to accident and emergency departments after its emergency call response times fell for the third month running

09 January 2009

By Graham Clews

The Welsh Ambulance Service is introducing more overtime shifts and streamlined admissions to accident and emergency departments after its emergency call response times fell for the third month running.

Figures announced this week show that 57.1% of responses to life-threatening, category A calls arrived within the target eight minutes in November, down from 60.9% in September.

The target across Wales, introduced in April, is 65% and in England it is 75%. In some parts of Wales, only 38% of responses were within the eight-minute benchmark.

Health Minister Edwina Hart has publicly criticised the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust's poor performance. Before Christmas she said Welsh Assembly Government officials had met with the ambulance trust and Health Commission Wales to discuss how response times could be improved.

The WAG's audit committee identified a lack of appropriate technology as a major barrier to improvement in a report published in October.

An ambulance trust spokesman said: 'A combination of factors affected the trust's emergency response times in November, including increased demand, delays at hospitals, and the need to limit the number of overtime shifts to remain within budget, which is a statutory requirement on the trust.'

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