MORE than two hundred ambulances per month in the Vale of Glamorgan arrive late, according to research by Plaid Cymru.

Category A emergency calls should arrive within eight minutes according to Welsh Government guidelines, but the 65% target has been missed every month for more than the past year Plaid Cymru councillor Ian Johnson has said.

Buttrills ward councillor Johnson added that, in August of this year only 54% of ambulances met the target in the Vale of Glamorgan, and expressed concern that hospital service changes could make this even worse.

Cllr Johnson said: “For 13 consecutive months, the ambulance service in the Vale of Glamorgan has failed to hit Welsh Government arrival time targets, and performance has worsened in the past six months.

“In the Vale of Glamorgan, more than 200 ambulances per month arrive later than they should. This is very worrying and life-threatening news.

“It is simply not acceptable for life or death targets to be missed month after month and the response to be a shrug of the shoulders.

“In a public meeting in Llantwit Major in the summer about hospital changes, residents told a series of worrying stories about the time that it took ambulances to find houses.

“Plaid Cymru has expressed concern about the effect that hospital changes would have on waiting times, not just for when an ambulance arrives but the time that patients would spend waiting at the hospital accident and emergency as well just to get in.

“Ambulance workers and paramedics work very hard in difficult situations saving people’s lives, so we need to make sure that their time is best used to treat people rather than travelling to far away hospitals or completing paperwork.”