Elin Jones, local AM for Ceredigion and Plaid Cymru’s Shadow Health Minister, has commented on figures which show that ambulance response targets have again been missed.

Last month, Ceredigion saw some of the worst figures on record, with fewer than 50% of urgent calls responded to within 8 minutes, compared with the Welsh Government’s target of 65%. This month, Ceredigion’s figures saw an improvement to 57%, similar to the Wales-wide percentage.

Elin Jones AM said,

“While the improvement in Ceredigion is welcome, the figures published today show that 43% of patients waited longer than the target time, and the overall picture across Wales remains weak.

“The Health Minister has promised several times that the figures would show an improvement in the service. This is not the case. This is a long-standing failure by the Labour Welsh Government and is indicative of fundamental problems throughout the emergency care system. The problem is not confined to the ambulance service.

“That’s why Plaid Cymru is pushing for fundamental changes to the way the health service is run. By integrating health and social care services we can make sure that people get the care and support they need as close to home as possible, so that people can access the care they need before they become emergency cases. We also need to support paramedics better, and plan for the future workforce. Lessons need to be learned from the approach taken in Scotland which had performance at the same level as Wales back in 2007 but has improved performance significantly over subsequent years.”