MORE than 100 patients in Gwent in February waited more than the target eight minutes for an ambulance to arrive, despite the call being classified as 'Red 1' (covering those who have suffered a cardiac arrest or have stopped breathing).

And in two council areas - Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly - less than half of such calls received a response on scene inside eight minutes.

The February Red 1 results for these areas, at 44.4 per cent and 49.5 per cent respectively, were the worst in Wales in a category that has been included for the first time in official monthly ambulance response times figures.

In Newport, 75 per cent of such calls received an on scene response inside eight minutes, In Monmouthshire the figure was 62.1 per cent , and in Torfaen 55 per cent.

That means that in the Aneurin bevan University Health Board area overall, more than two in every five Red 1 calls (42.7 per cent) last month received an on scene response outside the eight-minute standard.

Of the 274 such calls where such a response was made, 117 failed the eight-minute standard.

In contrast, in the neighbouring Cardiff and Valle University Health Board area, 25.4 per cent of Red 1 call responses took more than eight minutes to arrive on scene.

Red 1 calls make up a relatively small amount of emergency category A calls - across Wales in February they comprised 11 per cent - but are the most significant in terms of the life threatening situations they involve.

The ambulance service's Red 1 performance in Gwent in February was worst than that for January, particularly worrying for health bosses given that the numbers of such calls, and emergency calls overall, were lower.

In January in Gwent, there were 321 Red 1 calls where an on scene response was made, and 62.3 per cent were there inside eight minutes. In February however, there were 274 such calls with an on scene response, but 57.3 per cent were there within eight minutes.

Taking category A emergency ambulance calls as a whole in February, performance against the eight-minute standard in Monmouthshire was the worst of all 22 council areas in Wales at just 41.3 per cent.

There were 305 such calls in the county last month that received an on scene response, and for more than one-in-10 (10.5 cent) of these, the ambulance or Rapid Response Vehicle took more than 30 minutes to arrive.