Wales’ new ambulance strategy is cruel and distressing for patients and those dialling 999

The ambulance service has failed because the hospitals have backed up. It is obvious why but no one seems motivated to alter it. The service is too small for the population it serves.

While extremely distressing for callers it is perhaps fitting that the Welsh labour Government’s new 'ambulance performance framework' is a utter disaster - because welsh labour's stewardship of the nhs in Wales for the last 25 years has been a utter disaster! We have the worst waiting lists in the uk - 38000 people are dying annually on welsh waiting lists - and had the worst ambulance response times for years. And like Emily i had the misfortune of trying to summon a Welsh ambulance recently but it seems the victim of the attack id just witnessed - a woman who'd been assaulted (and molested) by more than one male - wasnt, in the handlers view, a 'medical priority' so no timescale could be given for when - or even if - a ambulance would be despatched. I would complain to my local health board but they (like every health board in Wales) are stuffed with labour party appointees who can be relied upon to defend their party chums from criticisms of the way it is wrecking the health service in Wales. Thankfully however the chickens are coming home to roost for labour in Wales and - on account of its disastrous management of the Welsh among other things - the party rightly faces annhilation at the Senedd election in May

That is terrifying. "I've spoken to a doctor"... tf. Sadly I've had the same or similar treatment. When my mother had a suspected heart attack "Oh the ambulance will be with you soon" "When?" "Oh in about 8hrs or so". I could not believe what I was hearing. I'd read about such cases in the news before, but usually what I read in the newspaper and my own experience often tends to be completely different. Yet anyone can see the problems with the ambulance service. In England (North East), if you call the emergency services, they are there within the hour. Especially if the words "collapse", "unable to communicate", "agony" and similar phrases are uttered. My own experience was that they turned up in 15 minutes (we had to call them out twice). (Also the coastguard are amazing, who knew they did land stuff, team of volunteers but wow, more professionalism than the ambulance service in Wales). There is something seriously wrong in Wales. However, I'm not exactly sure how Wales could do better with the restrictive funding and higher demands, especially when being robbed blind to help England pay for its infrastructure costs.

Miles has no right through qualification to be in that job...enough solicitor politicians...

I know this piece is about the deficiencies of the Welsh Ambulance Service - and like other commentators, I've had a similar experience whereby we found an obviously intoxicated but badly injured man laying at the roadside and were told to take him to hospital ourselves - but I hope that Emily's daughter is receiving the treatment she needs and that the prognosis is a positive one. What an awful experience all round.

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My mother passed away at home in January after waiting 20 hours for an ambulance tjat never came. If I could have got her to A&E I would have done but this was an impossible task as it took 3 people to get her from the bathroom to her bed (a distance of no more than 10 feet). I complained about the service received and after waiting 6 months for a response (after involving the Ombudsman) the Ambulance Trust apologised but found not real issue with the (lack of) service provided.

Inept crisis management that only serves to compound the crisis.

The Welsh Government need to build Recrupriation hospitals, Council Care Homes so that patients can be discharged from Acute Hospitals when well enough but not well enough to go home, then it would free up beds which means that space can free up in A&E for ambulance crews to offload their patients to enable them to go out to the next emergency, simple! The problem is that the recrupriation hospitals we used years ago were closed down as the government refused to spend the money to maintain them, so we need new built. It's not the fault of the Ambulance Service at all when they are stuck outside A&E for up to 48 hours at a time! I'm an ex-nurse, saw this happening on a daily basis and hated it. It causes such low morale in the work place which is quite depressing for Nurses and Doctors. Recruiting Nurses and Doctors is at an all time low due to the expense of the training, the risks of certain hospitals closing down and the stress of a huge workload! We need to have First Aid taught in Schools as it was years ago, this will encourage some to become interested in care, nursing and becoming medics, it all starts here! Nurse training should be a job, with pay increasing when each level of training is reached, one day a week inhouse academic work not have to pay for your training! This is the only way that they can guarantee having sufficient recruitment of nursing staff! It should be free to train doctors too as they are all a necessity to a public service. All this would answer the crisis of our NHS and provide a sufficient and fit for purpose NHS. Welsh Government should stop giving money abroad, such as the £20 million to 3rd world countries to plant trees (probably not used by their government to plant trees, but to be used by corrupt money grabbers), this could have built one recrupriation hospital! Plus the purchases of Farms and land that are used for music festivals etc! Such a huge waste! So the Welsh Government need to sit down and discuss a good way forward with the input of other parties to get this right not bully and run other parties down they should all work together! It's not Rocket Science!!

When I first joined the ambulance service in the early 2000’s we would respond to calls and if they were ‘assistance’ calls (eg stuck in the bath or fallen out of bed) we could sort the situation out and had the autonomy to decide if the pt was ok and will be in a safe place eg with family who could keep an eye out in case pt deteriorated. The crew could then be off on another call. These days crews have to undertake a number of tests to check that the patient has not got other issues eg. heart problems or breathing problems, even though the cause might be as simple as slipping off the side of the bed. All of this paperwork is now the most important part of the call easily adding an hour onto what could be a quick call. This paperwork is now checked by supervisors who are paid extra to ensure that paperwork is done correctly just in case a complaint is made and someone is to be held to account. This blame culture is something that is never discussed as a cause for delays but is nevertheless a major reason for everything taking longer. We really need to have a cultural change in our system to reduce the ‘where there’s a blame there’s a claim’ culture.

There's not enough money to spend on making our public services run well and our politicians are desperately trying to make the service work while workers effectively have one hand tied behind their back. But billionaire wealth in the UK and globally doubled in the last five years. It'll only get worse if we don't act now and only support parties who want to bring in wealth taxes. Otherwise in 10 years we'll fondly remember the days when even when they were bad, at least we had public services.

The past service wasn't much better. I went to the coroners investigation into the death of a mutual friend, and an investigation found the ambulance service system wasn't fit for purpose. It sounded like they would have pushed further on it, but this new system had already been rolled out at the time of the coroners report. As a result, despite being listed as urgent, their call was skipped over and an ambulance took much longer to arrive. They couldn't rule that it had a part the death, but it was chilling to hear that 999 kept trying to call their phone and got no response.

I had a stroke in April wife phoned 999 it took 12 hours for the ambulance to come the nhs in Wales is disgusting I could have died