Lib Dem president meets ambulance staff (From Worcester News)

Lib Dem president meets ambulance staff

6:53am Saturday 1st September 2007 in

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THE president of the Liberal Democrat party was due to visit Worcester today to speak to staff at the closure-threatened ambulance control centre.

Simon Hughes MP will be joined by the party's West Worcestershire Parliamentary Candidate, Richard Burt, in a visit to Bransford Emergency Operations Centre (EOC).

He will meet staff and supporters with placards outside the centre and then be invited inside for discussions.

Mr Burt and staff at the centre have submitted an alternative proposal to West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, which involves the retention of both Bransford and Shrewsbury EOCs.

They say better links between the five call centres through a more integrated computer system could create a virtual control room, preventing closures.

The trust began a 13-week consultation on closing the centres on July 2. The proposal involves closing the two emergency operations centres and creating two regional control centres in Brierley Hill and Stafford, and a support centre at Leamington.

The five centres use different systems for dispatching ambulances, meaning, at present, there are no links between them.

The Worcester News has been campaigning to save the emergency operations centre at Bransford on the grounds that local knowledge would be lost if it closed.

We say this would create a situation where call handlers would have limited knowledge of local geography and would break up local teams. More than 1,600 people have signed our petition.

A spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust said: "The trust has stated it believes the proposals that we're consulting on are the best way of enhancing patient care in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and the rest of the region."

Sign the Worcester News petition on this site.