The Welsh Ambulance Service has recorded its worst set of response times to life-threatening calls in its history, latest figures have revealed. In some parts of Wales more than 60% of the most urgent 'red' calls were not reached within the target time of eight minutes.
Significant delays in response times are most often due to backlogs at overcrowded A&E departments, resulting in patients having to wait in ambulances outside. There have been reports of patients waiting almost two days in a vehicle before being handed over to hospital staff.
The Welsh Ambulance Service's executive director of operations, Lee Brooks, confirmed that in October alone the NHS trust lost almost 29,000 hours to handover delays - this has more than trebled in the past two years. The clock for handover delays starts 15 minutes after an ambulance arrives.
