“ALARMING” ambulance response and A&E waiting times have led to calls for a “revolution” of Wales’ NHS to meet targets.

The latest NHS waiting times have been released, and reveal that targets are still not being met.

Across all data, targets are not being met, with Hywel Dda not even reaching the 40 per cent target for eight minute ambulance response times.

Only 59 per cent of ambulances arrived to the scene within an hour of an amber case in Powys.

Despite a decrease in attendance at A&E departments, the four and 12 hour targets were the third and second lowest on record respectively.

The average time spent in emergency departments was also the second longest on record, at three hours and two minutes.

Statistics also revealed that Betsi Cadwaladr health board was the worst performing area against the four-hour A&E target, seeing only 56 per cent in four hours.

Montgomeryshire MS and Welsh Conservative Shadow Health Minister Russell George MS said: “Let there be no doubt of the scale of the crisis the NHS finds itself in.

“Labour need to get a grip on the NHS and stop breaking all the wrong records.”

Rhun ap Iorwerth, Plaid Cymru’s Health and Care spokesperson: “When we consider the scale of problems within the NHS we have to think of the health and care system as a whole, and the truth is that all too often it is in gridlock.

“We are seeing poor patient flow through the system, together with a lack of capacity to deal with demand.

“To deal with demand, there has to be a revolution in attitudes towards prevention.

“To improve patient flow we have to strengthen social care.

“And to deal with capacity, we must accelerate investment in workforce and in specific measures like diagnostic and treatment centres that can be protected from emergency pressures.

“Without all of this, we’ll keep going around in circles.”

Liberal Democrat Mid and West Wales MS Jane Dodds said: “This simply cannot go on.

“Our NHS and ambulance staff are doing all they can, but people’s lives are at risk when ambulance response times are so poor.

“Week after week I hear stories of people waiting hours for an ambulance, hours for treatment in A&E and even being treated in the back of ambulances sat outside our hospitals.

“The Welsh Labour Government is failing time and again to address the crisis in our NHS.”

The Welsh Government said: “999 emergency ambulance and emergency department staff and services remain under considerable pressure and performance is not where we want it to be.

“There is a live national delivery plan in place to support continuous improvement, including in support of tackling ambulance patient handover delays.”