Welsh Conservatives are calling for significant changes to be made in the way the NHS ambulance service responds to emergency calls.
Under the current clinical response model there are no time-based targets for patients experiencing stroke or chest pain, including “most heart attacks”, according to the Welsh Ambulance Services Trust.
Assembly Members have called this “appalling” and a “high price” for Welsh Government “spin”, demanding that these illnesses be placed in the eight-minute response category.
National guidelines for treatment for stroke in the United States – informed by University of Michigan-led research - make it clear that each passing minute can make a difference to how well the brain and body recovers from stroke.
The British Heart Foundation advises that people suffering from an attack should be treated as soon as possible because of the risk of death and poor recovery if treatment is delayed.
A new system for emergency ambulance services was implemented in October 2015 and placed calls to the Ambulance Service into three categories: Red, Amber and Green.
Red calls respond to what the service deems as “immediately life-threatening” conditions such as choking, sepsis, cardiac arrest and anyone who is in “imminent danger” – the Welsh Government has a target to arrive at the scene within eight minutes.
Amber calls - which respond to non-defined set of illnesses such as fractures, falls, strokes and chest pains, including “most heart attacks” - do not have a time-target.
This grading of call prioritisation could have proved lethal for Sheila Jones’ husband Rhys – both from Rhos-on-Sea near Colwyn Bay. The couple were out walking in Llandudno’s Happy Valley when Rhys had a heart attack. Speaking of the incident, Mrs Jones said:
“My husband and I were out walking when he began suffering from severe chest pains, feeling clammy and nauseous. It wasn’t until 34 minutes after 999 was called that an ambulance eventually arrived. It was extremely distressing and I was left worrying for his life.
“A whole 1 hour and 18 minutes passed between the call for an ambulance and my husband arriving at Glan Clwyd Hospital. Once there he was confirmed to have had an ‘acute cardiac episode’.”
Commenting, Welsh Conservative Assembly Member for Clwyd West, Darren Millar AM, said: “Under the current rules you can only get an eight-minute response for a heart attack if your heart has actually stopped beating - that's appalling.
“With a heart attack, as with a stroke, every minute ensuing an episode means more dead cells and a diminishing chance of recovery or survival.
“Waiting over half an hour for an ambulance to arrive when you’re staring death in the face is totally unacceptable – the Welsh Government should place ‘stroke’ and ‘chest pain’ in the most urgent response category where they belong.”
Welsh Conservative Shadow spokesperson for health, Angela Burns AM, said:
“The real scandal here is that the Welsh Government only time-targets four per cent of ambulance calls, which betrays an incredible lack of accountability, particularly where conditions such as heart attack and stroke depend on the speed of treatment.
“The lives and health of patients are far too high a price to pay for Welsh Government spin. I call on the cabinet health secretary to redress this issue by putting heart attacks and stroke in the red response category to give these patients the urgency of care they so desperately need.”