THE Great Western Ambulance Service failed to reach important call-outs quickly enough, according to a new report.

The service, which covers Wiltshire, failed to meet national targets by only reaching 68.37 per cent of category A emergency calls within the eight-minute target.

The statistics were published by the Care Quality Commission, which judged the service as weak for its overall quality of care and fair for its financial management.

This is the third year running the service has been rated as weak, ever since it came into existence through mergers of Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Ambulance Services.

However a spokesman for the service said changes made last year are helping to improve its performance and quality of care, which hasn’t shown up on this year’s report.

This includes 200 additional staff in control rooms and treating patients, a new computer aided dispatch system and a major overhaul of its control rooms.

“Last year was a time of great challenge and change,” said chairman Tony FitzSimons.

“Clearly our performance over the whole year was not good enough, and we accept that, but many of the changes that were introduced in the second half of the year are now resulting in faster response times and other improvements to patient care.

“Our focus was on making sustainable changes that would deliver patient benefits over the long term.”

Recent achievements mentioned included 98 per cent of 999 calls being answered within five seconds and a boost in the number of registered paramedics.