The number of ambulances arriving at the scene of a life-threatening 999 call within eight minutes is still dramatically below Labour’s Welsh target.
Despite Wales being home to the lowest target for ambulance response times to life threatening calls in the UK – at 65 per cent – just over half of ambulances arrived on scene within that timeframe during March.
The target has been met just once in over two and a half years.
Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Health, Darren Millar AM, said:
“These figures are yet another hammer blow for Welsh patients and the determined staff who work within our ambulance service.
“Response times remain wide of the mark and it's putting lives at risk. Axing hospital beds, closing minor injuries units and community hospitals, and jam packed emergency departments are all taking their toll and contributing to this poor performance.
“Long delays for urgent assistance could potentially mean the difference between life and death. Despite assurances of improvement, response times simply aren’t getting significantly better.
“Labour’s Welsh health minister should make an urgent statement and explain his government’s failure to communities across Wales.
"We need action to resolve the problems in our unscheduled care system once and for all."
The statistics are available here:
http://gov.wales/statistics-and-research/ambulance-services/?lang=en