March - a busy month for emergency calls.

I see once again the Welsh Conservatives and their buddies, the Liberal Democrats, are "disgusted" that in March the Welsh Ambulance service failed to reach it's all Wales target of reaching 65% life threatening emergency calls withing 8 minutes. According to the BBC Welsh Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams accused Welsh ministers of failing to address the issue calling the figures an "absolute disgrace".

I've posted in the past that I think the statistics collected are a bit worthless see 999 responce times and pointless statistics.

And we all know what the Conservative led Coalition in England want to do with the NHS - privatise it completely. See BBC House of Lords to debate NHS 'privatisation'

But back to March 2013 - when fast swathes of Wales was covered in deep snow, whilst the rest of us shivered in bitter cold winds, it was not surprising that the number of emergency calls in March where up by 2,069 compared to March 2012.  In fact March 2013 had the highest monthly number of Category A calls since the service classification changes introduced in December 2011.

Something both the BBC "Ambulance delays: Wales targets missed in every area." and the Daily Post  "Ambulance Service misses 999 response time target for most serious calls for tenth month in a row" think not important to point out.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good story or some political point scoring.

For "latest National Statistics produced by the Welsh Government were released on 24 April 2013 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority" see Ambulance services, March 2013.

The politicians answer - hold a review and make it comprehensive.

As we know the Welsh Ambulance service has failed to meet it target of reaching 65% of emergency calls within 8 minutes. As I said yesterday, as a measure of the quality of the service, this arbitrary target is rather pointless, as it easier to meet in large cities and towns than in rural areas. Then there are the factors outside the control of the Ambulance Service that affect these times.......poor weather or busy A&E meaning Ambulances having longer waits, to name but two.

Ideally what you should to do is combine the fire service and the ambulance service into an all Wales Emergency Response Service, and separating the transfer of patients back in to the local heath boards responsibility. Well that what happens in most other countries.

But that not going to happen is it, and if you want to increase response times, which after all is really just an exercise in logistics, making sure you have enough ambulances in the right place at the right time, I suspect what you need is more ambulances, more staff and more money. Especially in the future, with fewer hospitals and greater travel distances,  tying Ambulances and Paramedics up longer.

But of course we ain't got the money, they struggled to agree the Ambulance budget this year, no doubt the health boards wanted to pay less, but demanded a better service.

As reported by  BBC Wales - Lesley Griffiths [the Health Minister] has announced plans to improve response times as well as holding a "comprehensive review" into the service......

It failed to meet the target of responding to 65% of the most urgent calls within eight minutes for the fourth successive month.

But the minister announced she wants to increase the Category A target to 70% of calls whereas in England it stands at 75%.

A final decision will be made after the review is completed, the Welsh government said.

Ah the politicians default position, when they cant make a decision ...which in this case should either be give  more monies to the Ambulance Service to improve their response times, or be honest and say in these days of austerity this is the best we can hope to achieve as things stand.

But no kick it into the long grass by announcing a comprehensive review. Although to be fair to Lesley Griffiths I suspect that in her in tray, there are far more important and controversial issues she needs to deal with...one being the proposed closure of many community hospitals. 

999 responce times and pointless statistics.

Am always surprised by the fascination the media and politicians have with arbitrary statistics, see Tom Bodden in today's Daily Post.  Take the response times for welsh ambulances and a target that 65% arrive within 8 minutes. Why 8 minutes..why not 10...why 65% - do they actually mean anything? - other than putting pressure on already hard working paramedics. For this statistic measures nothing really, it doesn't show us the 'outcomes'- the quality of care received during the golden hour, and neither can you really use it compare regions.

I've a feeling this statistic was made up by some civil servant living in a large city such as Cardiff. Whereas things are different in rural areas such as Anglesey, and our poor roads, many narrow and winding. It's also a statistic better suited to the olden days, when you had ambulance drivers, whose main job was to chuck you as quick as possible int' back of ambulance and rush you off to hospital, so Doctor could make you all better.

These days we have dedicated and hard working paramedics, whose priority on arriving is to asses the patient and stablise his or hers condition, and if things are really really bad there is always the Wales Air Ambulance to call in, to whisk them away to the nearest Accident and Emergency.

I suppose the clock stops when they reach the location, again easy in a big city, but what about in rural villages and post codes that cover large areas, and houses with no names, and then there's the weather especially over winter, far better that the ambulance arrives in one piece, than not at all.

After all life is about risk, and if you decide to live in a rural area far far away from the madding crowd, well you have to accept things like ambulances may take a bit longer to arrive, and if you judge that risk too high...maybe better you move back to the town or city then.