GREAT Western Ambulance bosses have pledged to pump a huge cash injection into improving services in Wiltshire.

Chief executive Anthony Marsh announced an extra £6.75m has been secured by the Great Western Ambulance Service Trust to recruit more staff in a bid to meet government targets to emergency call response times across Wiltshire, Avon and Gloucestershire.

“I am delighted to transform GWAS and to improve the speed of our response times to 999 calls. To do this, the trust has been working with the South West Strategic Health Authority and the primary care trusts to secure the investment we need."

Funding will be used to recruit more more control room staff to answer 999 calls and dispatch vehicles and more road crews to attend incidents,said Mr Marsh.

He added: “This money will also make sure these new staff are fully trained and that existing road crew and control room staff are released to undertake top-up training.”

Mr Marsh said he was confident that this investment would help the ambulance trust meet all its national targets by the end of the financial year.

The government targets require ambulances respond to 75 per cent of all Category A (immediate life-threatening calls) within eight minutes.

The target for Category B (all other serious but not immediately life-threatening cases) is that 95 per cent are reached within 19 minutes.

“I am absolutely committed to turning the GWAS into a high achieving and trust which supports its staff and delivers the best possible care to the patients we service,” said Mr Marsh.