Patients still waiting for urgent ambulance journeys

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 6th Sep 2006

Welsh Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Jenny Randerson today congratulated the Welsh Ambulance Service for doing a great job under difficult circumstances, as new figures on emergency calls were released today.

"Despite the overstretched staff and low morale, 84.5% of responses to all emergency calls arrived within the target times.

"However, the figures show that urgent journeys with time limits, such as maternity admissions or hospital transfers are less likely to arrive on time than six years ago.

"Between April and June of 2000, 86.7% of urgent journeys were either on time or up to 15 minutes late. The figure for April-June this year was 69%, down by almost 20%.

"Fewer urgent journeys are arriving on time or nearly on time. It is disappointing that Government statistics now have to tell us how far off the target we are.

"However, patients not arriving on time can delay operations, affecting other patients and wasting NHS time and money. Proper investment in the ambulance service would be a better way of adding value to the NHS."