£3m funding aims to help improve ambulance response times

The funding will also be used to recruit more emergency ambulance staff to help those most seriously ill or injured.

This additional funding will enable the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST) to recruit around 100 additional frontline staff and introduce a new ‘Cymru High Acuity Response Unit’ (CHARU) service.

The CHARU service will seek to improve outcomes for people who have suffered cardiac arrest.

Read more: Our readers share their experiences of ambulance waiting times

The Welsh Ambulance Service says it is under 'significant pressure' across its services.

This is a common theme throughout the UK - a survey of more than 1,000 British adults found around six out of 10 (61%) people were not confident an ambulance would arrive quickly if they needed one.

The poll, carried out by Ipsos for the PA news agency, also found that nearly two-thirds (64%) of people did not have confidence they would be seen quickly in A&E if they needed emergency care.

The additional staff brought in through this £3 million funding will help to manage increased demand for emergency care and partially mitigate some of the complex wider system challenges which continue to place intense pressure on emergency care staff and services.

These pressures are being intensified by a range of local and national factors including challenges with patient flow through the hospital system, as well as staffing constraints.

The Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care Programme has been established to help improve access to urgent and emergency care and we have already made £25m recurrent funding available to support delivery of programme priorities.

Read more: Ambulance service facing sort of pressure normally seen in winter, says minister

This complements the £145m made available to Regional Partnership Boards, as part of a Regional Integration Fund, to be used to help people avoid admission to hospital or leave when they are ready.

The additional emergency ambulance staff will be deployed in a targeted way across Wales in the areas which are under greatest pressure and where there is the greater clinical need.

Health Minister Eluned Morgan said: “We are providing this additional funding as we recognise the immense pressures the ambulance service is under to respond to the most seriously ill and injured people.

Eluned Morgan, health minister (Image: Welsh Government)

“By increasing staff capacity in the short term we can improve response times and ensure better care for people who have been waiting too long for an ambulance.

“Our Six Goals for Urgent and Emergency Care programme will support an increase in staffing in crucial areas in the medium term and help staff to deliver the right care, in the right place, first time whenever possible.”

Jason Killens, Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service, said: “Extreme pressure remains across the urgent and emergency care system, and we continue to work with partners to find solutions to the complex and long-standing issues.

“In the meantime, we’re growing our workforce to put us in the best possible position to meet rising demand and have already recruited to more than 260 frontline posts in the last two years.

“An additional 100 frontline posts is going to bolster our capacity even further, and we’re grateful to Welsh Government for funding this and the pioneering new CHARU initiative, which we hope will improve the outcomes for our most critically ill patients.”