Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:46 pm on 16 February 2022.
I accept that there is a problem. The demand on the service has been enormous. The increase in demand on the service is more than anything we've seen before, so obviously there is a demand aspect to this that also needs to be looked at. I think also we've got to understand that actually over half of people are seen within the time frame, so it's not all bad, but of course we're not reaching anything like the targets that we should be reaching. One of the things that's happened this week is that there was a national risk summit to look at what harms are happening as a consequence of this, so that people start to understand this is not something where there are no consequences; there are serious consequences and therefore people need to understand that they need to step up and take more responsibility. So, that happened this week, as well. There will be outcomes as a result of that summit, so I'm just waiting to hear exactly what's happening. So, of course the situation needs some focus, which is why I'm giving it that focus. We've invested £5 million. An extra 127 front-line ambulance staff will become available in the coming months. They're all being trained up now, they'll be going on the front line and, of course, there are more people helping with that triaging in the call centres as well.