£6.7m Investment to Fund New & Modern Ambulances in Wales

The Welsh Ambulance Service is to benefit from up to new emergency ambulances and patient transfer vehicles following a ‘major’ £6.7million investment. 

The investment will enable the service to buy 35 new emergency ambulances and six patient transport vehicles to replace older models. The Welsh Ambulance Service currently has more than 700 vehicles, which cover an area of more than 8,000 square miles across Wales.

The new vehicles will help reduce running costs as they will be more reliable and fuel efficient, with less time taken off front line duty for repairs and maintenance. They will provide the best possible clinical environment for patients to be treated and, if necessary, transported to hospital for life-saving care and, in the case of patient transport vehicles, routine appointments.

The latest ambulance service performance figures show the demand placed on the service with more than 36,000 999 calls received in June – 13,199 of those calls were categorised as “red” calls, which means they were the most serious and immediately life-threatening. The total number of emergency calls received by the Welsh Ambulance Service has risen by 3.8% between 2013-14 and 2014-15.

Health and Social Services Minister Mark Drakeford said: “The demands on our ambulance service grow every year and we are determined to invest in the service to deliver the best service to patients.

“This investment will support front line operations by providing the latest vehicles and responds to increased numbers of emergency calls and a greater need to convey patients to hospital. We are continuing to invest in our ambulance service to ensure the fleet is made up of the most modern and reliable vehicles to meet the needs of the sick and injured in Wales.”

Patsy Roseblade, Executive Director of Finance and ICT at the Welsh Ambulance Service, added: “The Trust relies very heavily on its fleet of more than 700 vehicles. It is imperative therefore that they are reliable and in good condition to respond to the next emergency. The Welsh Government vehicle replacement programme enables this to be achieved.

“We’re very grateful to Welsh Government for its continued support, which will allow us to improve the quality of our services and enhance patient care.”

Next month the current ambulance response times are to be replaced with a piloted a new clinical response model, which aims to ‘prioritise patient care and end the current practice of sending multiple ambulances to a 999 call to chase the eight-minute target’.

The introduction of the new system will see calls to the ambulance service graded on a ‘traffic light’ system. As part of the piloted trial, those people with an immediate life-threatening condition – such as a cardiac arrest – will continue to receive an immediate response from the Welsh Ambulance Service. All other patients will receive a bespoke clinical response, which is based on their health needs, rather than a generic response based on the 41-year-old time target.