Ambulance services in the Newtown area are set to receive a boost thanks to the introduction of a new breed of vehicle.
The Welsh Ambulance Service is expanding its High Dependency Service (HDS) in the area and is currently recruiting five people to man the service across North Powys, based at Newtown ambulance station.
They will operate the HDS ambulance which will be used to cover transfers from hospital to hospital and give increased priority to General Practitioner requests for urgent hospital admissions within the North Powys area.
The staff working on a High Dependency ambulance can administer oxygen and pain relief to help make patient transfers as comfortable as possible. Its arrival will also free up frontline ambulances to deal with emergencies and remain within their communities.
Regional Director Richard Lee explained that it will be a big boost for responses to emergency calls.
He said: “This service will arrive here to deal with the majority of the urgent work we currently have to manage using emergency crews. HDS will take the pressure off emergency ambulance crews working in the area, freeing them up to respond to life-threatening calls.
“This vehicle will deal with urgent admissions or hospital transfers that don’t need a paramedic onboard. The current HDS in the Trust has already proved vital feather in the cap for the Welsh Ambulance Service and people will see a change for the better when this becomes operational in North Powys.
“Over the last year we have transformed our response time performance within Powys and the introduction of new staff and a HDS crew in North Powys is the next step as part of this improvement plan.”