6. Will the First Minister make a statement on the performance of the ambulance service? OAQ52202

Yes. The Welsh ambulance service continues to deliver a highly responsive service to the people of Wales despite record levels of demand. In March, 69.6 per cent of immediately life-threatening calls received a response within eight minutes, with a typical response time of five minutes and 29 seconds.

In a Plenary session on 16 January I raised the important issue of front-line NHS workers being at breaking point as a result of the pressures being put on them on a daily basis. This related specifically to the Welsh ambulance service, and you pledged to investigate and to write back to me. You wrote back to me earlier this month with a reply that outlined that measures are being taken by the ambulance trust to support its staff. And that includes an in-house well-being team, which on paper sounds great, but a contact of mine says they were unable to access this service because that service never got back to them. The lack of capacity in our hospitals, causing delays in transfers of care, is cited by my contact as being the biggest factor in delayed ambulance responses and, subsequently, stress caused to call handlers. For the sake of our NHS as well as staff and patients, when is this Government going to get to grips with this problem?

Let me give the leader of Plaid Cymru a fuller answer. The winter of 2017-18 did see a sustained pressure across the NHS, both in Wales and the UK in general. March 2018 was, I think I'm right in saying, the busiest month ever for the ambulance service. One of the key groups of staff affected has been the 999 call takers and the control-room staff who work for the Welsh ambulance service as well as, of course, ambulance staff themselves and the paramedics. What the ambulance service did was approach the ambulance service charity to provide support to ambulance clinical-control centres, particularly to call-taking staff. Two sessions were run at each of the three regional control centres, covering a range of support mechanisms available to help staff with their emotional and physical well-being, but also the wider support available from TASC, the charity, in areas such as financial management, preparing for the future, and other benefits that TASC provides for ambulance staff. And the feedback from staff has been, 'Those sessions were invaluable', and the trust is now looking at how TASC resources can be used to support staff in the future as part of the trust's response to operational pressure. 

First Minister, over the three winter months, 1,860 people who were classified as amber, and you will know this includes people suffering from a stroke or a heart attack, were made to wait over six hours for their ambulance. Now, this is, surely, unacceptable and we need to ensure that, next winter, some of these very basic standards are met.

I can say, at the request of the Cabinet Secretary, the chief ambulance services commissioner has commenced a clinically led review specifically on the amber category, alongside work that's ongoing at the moment to look at ambulance responsiveness, clinical outcomes and patient experience. There are four things in particular the review will look at: firstly, the current state in respect of extant policy practice and guidance; secondly, the expectations and experiences of the public, staff, and the wider service around ambulance response to amber calls; thirdly, consideration of environmental factors, such as the location of an incident and the age of a patient when determining allocation of a response; and, fourth, the other external or internal factors that may contribute to, or impact on, how the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust responds to amber category calls, and that work is ongoing.

The amount of emergency ambulance calls during 2016-17 was up 116 per cent on the number of emergency ambulance calls made in previous years. This is a staggering increase by any calculation, yet the Welsh ambulance service has for 30 consecutive months met its national response-time target for red calls, thanks to our clinical response model and our staff delivering care quicker to those who need it most—a model rubbished by the Welsh Tories as 'moving the goalposts', and a model now being looked at to be replicated in England by their Westminster Tory colleagues.

Will the First Minister join me, then, in praising the dedicated men and women of the ambulance service, who continue to contribute to our wonderful Welsh national health service in the year of its seventieth anniversary, and further outline what we can do to further aid their invaluable work?

Can I join the Member in paying my regard, consideration and thanks, indeed, to the ambulance staff for what they do in saving lives day after day in Wales? I can say that significant resources have been invested in the last few years, targeted at ensuring that the number of front-line staff is increased, both in the control centres and, indeed, on the road. We have a record number of staff, actually, employed in the service. Back in October, we announced an £8.2 million investment to enable the Welsh ambulance service to continue upgrading the existing fleet, which brings the total investment in new ambulance vehicles since 2011 to almost £45 million.