Written question WQ83860

The Emergency Ambulance Services Committee Delivery Plan, sets out a range of time-bound actions, to be delivered between now and the end of March 2022.

Key actions outlined in the plan include:

• Improved forecasting to better understand and plan for actual demand and match resourcing accordingly;

• Continued implementation of recommendations from independent demand and capacity review;

• Ensuring we are able to control the demand on our services while ensuring patients are safe and receive the care they need in the place they need it;

• Health board clinicians directly managing ambulance patients and redirecting them to clinically safe alternatives;

• Using ambulance staff to safely cohort multiple patients, allowing ambulances to return to community response.

These actions should enable the Welsh Ambulance Service to better manage 999 demand in the community, increase capacity, improve responsiveness to people with time-sensitive complaints and enable improvement in ambulance patient handover.

I will receive monthly updates on progress against the plan and my officials will be meeting with the Emergency Ambulance Services Committee management team regularly as part of ongoing assurance mechanisms to ensure this work is undertaken with pace and purpose.

One hundred military colleagues are providing support for the Welsh Ambulance Service, driving ambulances in response to 999 calls across Wales. A team of additional supporting staff, including military planners, will also provide support to the Welsh Ambulance Service.

The current Military Aid to the Civil Authorities (MACA) is scheduled to conclude at the end of November. As part of the winter preparedness measures as a result of current and forecast activity and system-wide pressures, the Welsh Ambulance Service has requested, in line with its original request, to receive military support until March 2022.

There are also a number of additional actions already well developed and in train to better manage patients in the community, increase ambulance availability and to unlock bed capacity in acute hospitals by preventing admissions and improving discharge planning.

This includes provision of additional capacity by St John Cymru Wales, additional recruitment of ambulance clinicians and more paramedics in contact centres to triage 999 patients. We have also made an additional £25m available to health boards and NHS Trusts to implement urgent primary care centres and same day emergency care services.

Hywel Dda University Health Board will receive increased staffing as a result of the investment in the Demand and Capacity Review. In addition there is a no-reduction agreement for the health board, meaning no station will have less ambulances than they have had previously.

The health board has a physician triage assessment and streaming service, allowing its clinicians to directly intervene with patients awaiting an ambulance, often resulting in patients’ needs being met without an ambulance being deployed.