The slowest ambulances were in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board area with only 35% arriving within the eight-minute target of a red-call.
Labour-run Wales hits worst A&E and ambulance waits on record
Ambulance response times plunged to new depths according to latest figures, with less than 40% of life-threatening incidents being reached in the target time, while 50,000 people wait over two years for treatment and Wales again had its worst A&E waits on record.
The figures come on the day that the Welsh Ambulance Service is striking and in the same week that the Royal College of Nursing announced new dates for striking in February.
When it came to ambulance performance in December, only 39.5% of responses to immediately life-threatening calls arrived within eight minutes – by far the worst on record (the previous record was 48% recorded last month).
The target of 65% of red-calls reaching their patient within eight minutes has not been reached now since July 2020. Staggeringly, over three-quarters (78%) of amber call patients – which include strokes – took over an hour to reach, with only 13% arriving within 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, over a third (37%) of patients had to wait over the four-hour target to be seen in A&E last month – this is the worst A&E wait in Wales on record. In England and Scotland, the equivalent figure in both was 35% and 32%, respectively. The Welsh target to get 95% admittances seen in four hours has never been met in its 13-year existence.
Commenting, Welsh Conservative and Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said:
“These are another dire set of figures that only serve to highlight the daily suffering in the Labour-run NHS in Wales where patient safety is at risk and staff morale is utterly broken.
“How can anyone have any confidence in the Labour Government in Cardiff Bay to resolve the issues facing the NHS like access to GPs and dentists and solving strikes when both emergency and elective care on their watch is crumbling?
“I know this is a difficult situation across many nations, but we must remember, that on Labour’s watch, Wales has been left in a worse position – we’ve just recorded the worst A&E and ambulance response times on record and we have Britain’s longest waiting list.
“Labour need to get a grip on the NHS and stop breaking all the wrong records.”
Statistics also revealed that:
- The Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board was the worst performing area in the nation against the four-hour A&E target, seeing only 58% in four hours;
- An astonishing 44% of patients had to wait over four hours at emergency departments in Morriston Hospital in Swansea, making it the worst performing site in Wales;
- Nearly 12,000 patients waited over 12 hours in Welsh hospitals; and
- Adults aged 85+ spent an average of seven and half hours in emergency departments.
Additional figures show nearly a quarter (24%) of the Welsh population are on a waiting list, with the number of people waiting over two years for treatment now at 49,594, despite such waits being virtually eliminated in England and Scotland.
Also, in November, 1-in-4 Welsh patients waited over a year for treatment, but only 1-in-20 do so in England. Meanwhile, the median waiting time for that same month in Wales was 21.2 weeks compared to 13.6 in England.
The slowest ambulances were in the Cwm Taf Morgannwg health board area with only 35% arriving within the eight-minute target of a red-call. Only 16% came to the scene within an hour of an amber call in Cwm Taf Morgannwg.
