CHIEFS at the ambulance service covering the Stroud valleys are fighting to drive up performance after a health watchdog found quality of care had remained poor.

The Care Quality Commission rated the Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS) ‘weak’ for quality of care and ‘fair’ for financial management from 2008/09 – the same as the previous year.

But ambulance officials claim that changes introduced late in the year are starting to bring improvements.

Tony FitzSimons, GWAS chairman, said: "Last year was a time of great challenge and change.

"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."

The improvements introduced in the second half of 2008/09 include nearly 200 extra staff – in control rooms as well as treating patients – a state-of-the-art computer aided dispatch system and a major overhaul of the control rooms.

Ambulance officials claim improvements in performance have come despite crews responding to more than 11 per cent additional 999 calls than last year.

GWAS was recently ranked the best in the country for answering calls.