WE have to give praise when it due, especially to the much criticised Welsh Ambulance Service.

According to the latest figures, emergency ambulance response times improved dramatically in Torfaen during August, after a year of being among the worst in Wales.

The Wales Ambulance Services NHS Trust has been planning to put extra resources on the ground in Torfaen and other parts of Gwent to improve response times, and has also been sending senior regional staff into the Royal Gwent Hospital to try to ease the problem of long patient handover times.

If that is now working and this isn’t just a blip in the figures then it is to be applauded.

We have said many times before that the staff on the ground are not to blame for these poor times - the problem lies much higher up.

We will continue to monitor the situation because if indeed management has solved the problem then we should see an improvement month after month.