Ambulance Response Times Put Residents At Risk

Last year a footballer with a broken leg had to wait for 40 minutes on a cold pitch in Llanwddyn for an ambulance to arrive. Last month a family near Llanwddyn waited 50 minutes for an ambulance to attend an emergency call. Will the next occasion be 60 minutes or even more?

I have no doubt that the ambulance crews themselves are doing a sterling job but the management of the service leaves much to be desired. It is true that for 360 days of the year perhaps we may only need a routine service but on the other five we expect an emergency response from what is, after all, an emergency service.

The whole of the north-west of Montgomeryshire, including the accident blackspots of Lake Vyrnwy and Pistyll Rhaeadr, is being put at risk because of the down-grading of the Llanfyllin Ambulance Station and this needs to be re-examined urgently.

In 2003 the Labour Assembly Government promsed that ambulances would meet their response time targets in 65% of life-threatening situations by March 2005. Latest figures show it is actually happening on just 54% of such occasions. Something is seriously wrong and it requires immediate action.

Call for an Inquiry into Ambulance Response Times in Montgomeryshire

Today I am calling on the Powys Local Health Board and the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust to launch a joint inquiry into the ambulance response time of 50 minutes to a fatal accident near Llanwddyn, Lake Vyrnwy, on 18 January.

I know it was an awful night and the ambulance crew certainly did everything they could but 50 minutes to respond to an emergency call does seem unreasonably long. I wrote to the Welsh Ambulance Service in May 2006 warning them that removing the 24-hour staffing from Llanfyllin and requiring its ambulance to provide cover for other stations in Montgomeryshire would leave a large area of the county without adequate provision. Maybe for 360 days a year a routine service is acceptable but, sadly, sometimes an emergency response is required and it has taken this tragic accident to highlight the deficiencies.

I have consistently argued that the north-west corner of Montgomeryshire, characterised as it is by narrow roads and the tourist hotspots of Lake Vyrnwy and Pistyll Rhaeadr , deserve to be served by an ambulance which is stationed permanently in Llanfyllin and which is staffed 24 hours a day.