Welsh ambulance service performance "appalling” and "unacceptable”, according to Assembly Audit Committee

The performance of the ambulance service in Wales has been branded "appalling” in an Assembly Audit Committee report published today. The report says that the ambulance trust has failed to deliver acceptable standards of response time for emergency medical services, and there are unacceptable regional variations in response times, with south east Wales being particularly badly served. Performance was significantly worse than in England, and this was due to inefficiency and not a shortage of staff or finance. The reasons for the ambulance trust’s failure were many and varied but were caused by weaknesses in all areas of management practice and not by a lack of resources. Problems with the trust included inadequate leadership, a confused internal structure and poor use of financial resources. However, the Audit Committee also found that there were grounds for optimism that that these problems can be resolved over time provided key challenges are met. The Committee makes a number of recommendations aimed at improving management, procurement and service standards. Janet Davies AM, Chair of Audit Committee, said: "Ambulance services are of fundamental importance to the people of Wales and play a vital role attending to people when they are most in need The management failings which led to the poor performance of the ambulance service were completely unacceptable and should be a salutary lesson to other public sector organisations in Wales and beyond. "The Committee was shocked by the scale of the failings. The trust has had considerable resources at its disposal but has been inefficient in the way it has used them. We did find grounds for optimism that the service can be improved under the new team led by Alan Murray but only if these key shortcomings are addressed.”