"We will get better" says ambulance service

12:03pm Friday 25th April 2008

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BOSSES at the Great Western Ambulance Service have pledged to improve performance in Wiltshire within six months.

GWAS face the threat of being replaced by another ambulance provider by Wiltshire Primary Care Trust if it fails to meet national targets in sending ambulances to patients.

A meeting of the Great Western Ambulance Joint Scrutiny Committee on Friday heard that the service had improved performance in Avon and Gloucestershire in meeting the eight minute response for life threatening calls - but Wiltshire is lagging behind.

Steve West, director of operations at GWAS, told the committee: "The standards in Wiltshire have never been delivered previously. I'm confident the model we are using will deliver the response times in Wiltshire. Within the next six months we would expect to see performance sustainably improving."

He said the latest figures showed in Wiltshire the service is achieving just under the national target of 75 per cent of attending life threatening calls (Category A calls) within eight minutes.

The committee was told at a previous meeting that GWAS aims to achieve a 60 per cent response in rural areas. The overall target of 75 per cent was being met by achieving a higher figure in urban areas.


"We paid them extra...it didn't get better"


Wiltshire Primary Care Trust which, together with PCTs in the three areas, funds GWAS, says it expects ambulance performance to improve this year otherwise it will replace GWAS with another ambulance provider.

John Williams, director of finance at the PCT, told a board meeting on April 15: "The area served by the ambulance service has improved in urban areas but not rural areas, therefore Wiltshire's performance hasn't improved. We paid them extra money for the performance to get better and it didn't get better."