5. Will the First Minister provide an update on the Welsh Government’s monitoring of ambulance service response categories? OAQ51825

Yes, indeed. The new clinical response model is ensuring all patients receive the right response from the right type of clinician and vehicle to optimise their chances of a good outcome, and that patients in most need of an immediate intervention receive the fastest response.

Thank you. It's that immediate intervention question I want to raise with you, because, as you'll be aware, there have been some distressing stories in our neck of the woods where a reported injury has in of itself perhaps not been life-threatening, but the outcomes for patients have proven serious because secondary factors have not been taken into consideration by the call handlers. We've got one incident where individuals were left for hours in freezing conditions at night in a rural location, with an injury that perhaps at home in front of a warm fire wouldn't have been a problem. In another, an elderly person was left lying for hours on a cold floor after a fall with a fracture that would have proven life-threatening had they been moved by a lay person, which, of course, is the temptation when somebody's been left lying too long. And in another correct lay person report of knocked unconscious, that wasn't interrogated to reveal that the person was barely breathing and actually deteriorated so quickly that the amber categorisation proved to be a mistake. So, would the Welsh Government consider revisiting the questions asked by call handlers, not for a wholesale change of principle, but to allow environmental conditions to be taken into account before refusing a red categorisation?  

My understanding is that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Services has already asked the chief ambulance services commissioner to review the monitoring of amber calls in order to reduce the time waited by those with the longest response times and consider how the amber calls are being dealt with. So, I'm sure he's heard that additional point that you've made and will be taking that into account.