More than half of ambulances were late responding to calls Caerphilly County Borough, latest figures have revealed.
In March this year, only 46.1% of ambulances responded within the national eight minute target time.
All-Wales figures for March show 53.3% of emergency responses arrived within eight minutes. The Welsh Ambulance Service target was 65%.
Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, has branded the Welsh Government’s failure to address ambulance response times an “absolute disgrace”.
She said: “The Welsh Labour Government’s failure to address ambulance response times is an absolute disgrace. This Welsh Labour Government has completely failed to get a grip on poor response times and the issue is only getting worse.
“Why should the people of Caerphilly have to put up with some of the worst response times in the whole of Wales?
“I recognise that there were a large amount of calls in March with difficult weather conditions, but there really is no excuse for these appalling figures. Welsh Labour Ministers should hang their heads in shame.
“Fast ambulance response times often mean the difference between life and death. Targets here in Wales are already 10% behind those in England and Scotland, yet still Wales is nowhere near meeting these unambitious targets.
“Welsh Ambulance staff are working incredibly hard to deliver the best response times they can, but they are clearly working in a failing system that is getting in the way of them doing their job.”
It is the tenth month in a row that targets have been missed and are the worst set of figures since 2010.
Ms Williams’ calls for improvement were echoed by Conservative regional AM Mohammad Asghar.
Mr Asghar, who represents South Wales East, said: “The Welsh government has set a target by unitary authority of sixty per cent of ambulances to respond to emergency calls within eight minutes.”
“The latest figures show this target was missed in Blaenau Gwent, Merthyr Tydfil, Torfaen and in Caerphilly where less than fifty two per cent of emergency calls were responded to in time.
“The Health Minister must take action to deliver a more efficient and effective ambulance service in South East Wales as a matter of urgency.”
A Welsh Ambulance Service spokesperson said: “We continue to face significant pressure across the whole healthcare system and welcome the measures outlined by the Welsh Government to address these.
“March was a very busy month for us, taking a further 2,500 calls compared to last year, with a greater number of calls being of a more serious nature.
“This, combined with handover delays at hospitals and heavy snowfall and icy conditions, all impacted on our ability to respond to emergency calls and we commend the hard work and dedication of our staff in these challenging conditions.
“We once again ask the public to continue to support us by only dialling 999 and attending emergency departments for life threatening and serious illnesses and injuries – remember to keep emergency ambulances for your emergencies.”
The Welsh Assembly usually call for a review but we haven.t heard anything about the last 6 or 7 yet. Politicians usually call for a review if they don't want to tackle things in a posiitve way due usually to money matters, and hope it will go away.
As this is a devolved matter, the Welsh Assembly could `re-adjust` the ` national` `response` time from eight minutes to, say, 45 minutes, this would mean without any further considerations, re-organising, or management restructuring, all calls would be answered within the Government set response times. Job Done!!
Cynicism aside, this is a management failure, a political management failure, it is NOT a failure of the paramedics and crews that save lives day in day out, It is a catastrophic support failure by politicians and senior managers of the health service in Wales to those very same crews and paramedics as much as it is a failure of the Welsh Public.
Successive Welsh Assembly Health Ministers have tinkered about with this issue for as long as the Assembly has been in existence, they should appoint an expert logistical professional to take charge of the Ambulance Service, and not, some airy brained academic who presents some impressive paper plan to revolutionise the service.