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Families of stroke patients have renewed a demand for strokes to be considered a “red” category 999 call after a Plaid Cymru FOI request revealed more than 4,000 stroke patients had waited longer than an hour for an ambulance.
Since the introduction of a new call categorisation system in 2015, strokes have been considered an “amber” call, meaning an emergency worthy of an ambulance despatch but without a stated target response time. “Red” calls are deemed immediate life-threatening emergencies which require an ambulance service response with 8 minutes.
Plaid Cymru’s health spokesperson, Helen Mary Jones AM (Plaid, Mid & West Wales) said, “We know it is a life-threatening condition and we know if people get the right treatment at the right time then they are not only more likely to survive but there’s every chance they would have a healthy life.”
