HEALTH chiefs have called for more alternatives to ambulance callouts in an effort to improve patient outcomes.

Today saw the first release of Ambulance Quality Indicators (AQI), which measure clinical care, interventions and patient experience.

Now only red category calls, which pose an immediate threat to life, are subject to a response time target of eight minutes.

Published by the Emergency Ambulance Services Committee (EASC), the report contains categories of data never revealed before for Wales, including numbers of frequent callers and incidents attended by more than one ambulance.

Speaking at Cardiff's Senedd, chief ambulance services commissioner Stephen Harrhy called it "an important first step", three years after the McLelland report put forward a host of recommendations to transform the struggling Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust (WAST).

He said: "Time is important in some cases, particularly those involving immediate life-threatening conditions, but for other cases it is not the most important issue."

The AQI system is split into five steps, centred around the patient - help me choose, answer my call, come to see me, give me treatment, and take me to hospital - with an emphasis on improving collaborative working between Welsh Health Boards and WAST.

Mr Harrhy added: "What we are doing in Wales is not just being looked at across the UK but across the world. We now have more information across the pathways than other places have got. It is important we work proactively and positively to find improvements.

"It is very clear that ambulance services are part and parcel of the broader pre-hospital scheduled care system, and many of these statistics raise the need for alternatives to ambulance care."

The report revealed that 4,725 incidents were caused by frequent callers in October, November and December combined, which accounted for an average of 4.2 per cent of total incidents for WAST.

Meanwhile, 28 per cent of callouts during the same period were attended by two vehicles, ten per cent by three vehicles and three per cent by four or more.

Mr Harrhy said: "We have made this investment and are now able to present and utilise this data for the first time. We can now look at ways to reduce the numbers of frequent callers, who often have needs of their own, by working with health boards."

He added that without time targets on all callouts, the number of vehicles sent to incidents could also be cut without compromising patient safety.

The report also flagged up the success of over the phone health advice from the WAST call centre, with 5,642 calls resolved in this way over the course of the three months, while the percentage of red category incidents reached within eight minutes had risen to 72.4 per cent by December.

Deputy health minister Vaughan Gething said: “The ambulance quality indicators – published today for the first time – tell the story of how our ambulance services are delivered to patients in more detail than almost any service anywhere in the world.

"They also provide additional assurance that patients who have a serious condition, but is not immediately life threatening, are receiving quick responses."