6. Will the Minister make a statement on the response time of ambulance services in Blaenau Gwent? OQ57272

The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust is working with Aneurin Bevan University Health Board to implement a range of actions to manage demand for the 999 service in Blaenau Gwent. This will lead to increased capacity, improved responsiveness to people with complaints that are time-sensitive, and the ability to hand over ambulance patients more quickly.

Can I say I welcome that from the Minister? The Minister will have seen the same reports as I've seen and listened to the same experiences of constituents that I represent and she represents, in different parts of the country. We know that there's a real crisis in the interface between the national health service and the people it serves at the moment, and we know that at the heart of that is the ambulance service. We know that people are working harder than perhaps they've ever worked before and that resources are under more pressure than perhaps they've ever been before. So, will the Welsh Government look specifically at how we do manage the ambulance service? Will the Welsh Government look specifically at the resources available to the ambulance service? And will the Welsh Government look at how emergency structures and processes can be put in place today and over the coming weeks and months to ensure that the ambulance service continues to deliver the service that people need, require and have a right to expect, wherever they happen to be?

Thanks very much, Alun, and there's no question that the ambulance service has been under huge pressure, and of course none of these things live in isolation from each other. I think it probably is worth emphasising that, actually, in terms of 999 calls, for example, this October has seen a 24 per cent increase compared to last October. So, it's not just about them not performing well; they're trying to deal with a massive increase in demand, and so I do think we have to understand what is happening here. What we're trying to do is to make sure that the Welsh ambulance service are getting much better at forecasting, that they implement the requirements of the independent demand and capacity review, which looked at the way things were managed, and that we're directing people to clinically safe alternatives to try and dissipate some of that 24 per cent. But you'll be aware that we've already injected £25 million of additional funding into trying to sort out this problem over the winter months; that, since October, 100 military colleagues have been providing support for the Welsh ambulance service; and the trust is committed to recruiting a further 127 staff this year. So, all of these things, I'm hoping, will start to make a difference soon. Obviously, it needs to be sooner rather than later, because we're just about to enter the even more pressurised winter months. So, we're more than aware of the need to fix this problem sooner rather than later.