Welsh Ambulance Service declares ‘critical incident’ after increased demand
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The Welsh Ambulance Service has declared a “critical incident” because of significantly increased demand across the 999 service and extensive handover delays. The service, which covers three million-plus people across Wales, said more than 340 calls were waiting to be answered at the time the critical incident was declared on Monday evening.
More than half of the Trust’s ambulances were also waiting to hand over patients outside hospitals, leading to some people waiting “many hours” for an ambulance and staff taking longer to answer calls. The service has urged the public to call 999 only for serious emergencies.
The Trust said it has taken additional measures to ensure it can continue to deliver a service to the public. Stephen Sheldon, head of service, said: “It is very rare that we declare a critical incident, but with significant demand on our service and more than 90 ambulances waiting to hand over patients outside of hospital, our ability to help patients has been impacted.
“Regrettably, this means that some patients will wait longer for an ambulance to arrive and for their calls to be answered. “For that, we are very sorry because this is not the level of service we want to provide. “We understand that this is frustrating for patients, but can assure them that we are doing everything we can to relieve the pressure on our service.
