GWENT experienced some of the poorest emergency ambulance response times in Wales in June, despite improvements in performance in three of its council areas, compared to the previous month.

Three of the four poorest performances in Wales against the soon-to-be-replaced blanket eight-minute emergency ambulance response time standard were in Gwent - in Caerphilly, Torfaen and Blaenau Gwent.

They formed part of another set of difficult monthly results for the Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust across Wales, in which the Wales-wide target - that a minmimum 65 per cent of category A emergency calls be reached inside eight minutes - was missed for the 13th month in succession.

And in Gwent at least, they continued a pattern of fluctuating fortunes for the services in trying to meet targets.

Performance against the eight-minute standard in April was poor, but improved during May, only to slip back in Caerphilly (down 6.2 per cent) and Torfaen (down 6.1 per cent) in June.

The Caerphilly performance, with 52.1 per cent of category A emergencies reached inside eight minutes, was the poorest in Wales in June, and the Blaenau Gwent performance (55.2 per cent) was the third poorest.

In Torfaen the performance (55.6 per cent) was the fourth poorest, despite improving slightly on that for May.

Across Wales in June there were 14,132 category A calls, 5.7 per cent fewer than in May and 0.7 per cent fewer than in June last year.

The failure to improve significantly in the face of a fall in emergency calls, particularly compared to May, will be particularly concerning to NHS bosses.

The blanket eight-minute target will be replaced, probably during 2014, with a new set of response times targets, geared more toward clinical need, with heart attacks.

Elsewhere in Gwent in June, there was performance improvement, with the Monmouthshire eight-minutes response performance up 3.6 per cent, to 58.4 per cent, and Newport up 2.2 per cent, to 68.1 per cent.