The first minister knew that reviewing ambulance targets was a risky move, says BBC Wales political correspondent and guest blogger Daniel Davies.
In September 2013 Carwyn Jones said NHS performance targets would be reviewed.
As it happens, the following month was the last time the Welsh ambulance service hit its target, external to reach 65% of the most serious Category A emergency calls within eight minutes.
This is risky political ground for Labour. The first minister acknowledged as much on the Sunday Politics Wales programme in January 2014.
"Well, we can't review the targets until we've met them," he told me.
"I mean, quite naturally people will say if we try and change them without meeting them that we are trying to shift the goalposts."
That's exactly what Plaid Cymru has said today, claiming a trial of a new target system is a "dangerous experiment".
Despite a steady improvement this year, the ambulance service is still not meeting its key target for response times.
Yet from October the Welsh government says the target will only apply to a smaller number of the most life-threatening calls.
So what's changed since January 2014?
"This is clinically led", a source says. In other words, the experts think the 41-year-old eight-minute target no longer makes sense.
Similar pilot projects have been made in parts of England and an "increasing weight of evidence" persuaded Welsh ministers it was time for change.
Dr Brendan Lloyd, medical director of the Welsh ambulance service, says the "highest level of the medical profession in the UK, external" support an "urgent change".
The Tories and the Liberal Democrats say they welcome changes that will mean better care for patients.
But cross-border comparisons of the NHS have become a major part of Welsh politics.
Hardly surprising then that both parties want to retain a way of comparing the Welsh system with the performance of the ambulance service in England.
- Published29 July 2015
