Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 6 February 2019.
Thank you for that response, Minister, and I appreciate the efforts being made to improve the response times. I want to raise an issue in relation to that and how we can perhaps help it, because in my personal circumstances, I had a need for a family member to phone an ambulance over the weekend, and the individual actually went into atrial fibrillation at home. We phoned up and we were told the ambulance was on its way. I asked for clarity—'Can you give me an idea of what time?'—because I could actually get to Morriston perhaps faster than half an hour. We were not given information. We waited 20 minutes and I took the decision to go to Morriston, and I got there before the ambulance would have arrived. I actually cancelled the ambulance on the way.
But I've also had constituents telling me how many times they have been waiting for ambulances. If ambulance staff and ambulance crews, or the people on the 999 service, can actually give us an indication—they refuse, because they said, 'We can't predict it'. But if we can have an indication where they're coming from, I can take action to get somebody to a hospital faster, and treatment faster. In the case of AF, you need to get there fast.
Now, I didn't know what category it was in. I wasn't told whether it was red or amber. I was simply told, 'We can't give you any information, but your call has been logged and it's been passed on'. That's not good enough. I need to know when it's going to be coming, and if it's going to be delayed, I'll take the action and get the patient there. Can you look into this to ensure that people have the best information to take the decisions that they need to take to get the patients to the best place?