7. What assessment has the Welsh Government made of the adequacy of ambulance services in Dwyfor Meirionnydd? OQ58884

Ambulance response time performance is not where we, the NHS or the public would like it to be. We have a national ambulance improvement plan in place, supported by over £3 million of Welsh Government funding. This features national and local actions to support improvement, including in Dwyfor Meirionnydd.

I thank the Minister for that response, and I was pleased to hear the Minister speaking earlier thanking health sector workers, but words and claps don't pay bills; you need to discuss with unions in terms of wage levels. But that aside for the time being, the stories of patients waiting hours for ambulances are far too common, I'm afraid. I can point to the case of a 78-year-old woman having to wait 18 hours for an ambulance with a dislocated hip; in another case, an 88-year-old woman suffering from dementia had to wait 11 hours with a broken hip.

But even more concerning is that I understand that the ambulance service, in response to this crisis, intends to transform the provision and service, and rather than aiming to treat patients 80 per cent of the time, they will instead aim to treat and transport patients 20 per cent of the time. So, that raises concerns in terms of what the ambulance service's priority is with this reorganisation—is it to be on the telephone or treating patients? 

But even more concerning is that ambulances in Meirionnydd spend most of their time in the north-east of Wales on calls, because of the deficiencies there. So, what will you do to ensure that ambulances in Meirionnydd remain to treat patients in Meirionnydd, rather than having to travel far and wide to treat patients in other regions, leaving major parts of my constituency without coverage? 

I think there are different models that are appropriate to different areas of Wales. So, one of the things that I saw when I visited Hwb Iechyd Eifionydd was very good work by paramedics. So, what they did was to send local paramedics in—advanced paramedics—and they could help very many patients, which meant that they then didn't need to go hospital. So, the most important thing for me is that we transport only those people who truly need to be taken to hospital, and that's why we have seen a difference. We've seen fewer people taken to hospital, and that's a good thing. Generally speaking, what people need is help in the community. Clearly, if they are in a serious condition, they will need to be transported to hospital. But what's important is that we provide care, where possible, in the community, but there is also provision available to take them to the nearest appropriate centre. I understand that that can occasionally mean that ambulances will be a long way away from Meirionnydd, and that's why we do have new rosters, which do mean that the equivalent of 72 additional people working in the ambulance service are available, on top of the 100 additional staff because of the way that we have redesigned where ambulances are located.

Finally, question 8, Adam Price.