The Welsh Government has today published its monthly report on emergency calls and ambulance response times.
Commenting on new figures which reveal that ambulance response times in Powys have fallen to 53.3%, Russell George, AM for Montgomeryshire said:
“The Welsh Government needs to provide urgent answers on the under-performing Welsh Ambulance Service. In Powys, just over half of immediately life-threatening ‘category A’ 999 calls had a response within eight minutes last month – the lowest this year and the lowest for any August since records began.
“The Welsh Government’s unprecedented budget cuts are pushing the NHS in Wales to breaking point and is putting enormous and unfair pressure on the dedicated staff working in the ambulance services in mid Wales especially.
“In spite of hard work from frontline staff, record-breaking budget cuts has led to a crisis with missed targets and ambulances queuing up outside hospitals. It is particularly worrying that performance has been so dire during the summer and these figures do not bode well for the winter months ahead.
"Immediate answers are needed from Welsh Government Ministers in Cardiff as to how they plan to address repeated failures to meet their 65% target."