Ambulance chiefs insult our readers

Only 65 objections to the closure of Bransford's EOC have been recorded by West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust, despite the Worcester News delivering a petition against the plans containing 2,092 names.

In the trust's consultation document it states 240 respondents support the closure of Bransford and Shrewsbury's call centres with services centralised at Brierley Hill and Stafford with a support centre at Leamington Spa.

It states 65 are against the plans.

However, it has counted the thousands of names on your Worcester News petition as one objection and a 15, 914 strong petition from Shropshire as another single response.

At yesterday's extraordinary meeting of the trust's board in Redditch, chairman Sir Graham Meldrum said it was because people who sign petitions do not give detailed reasons for their concerns.

"You would have to go back to each individual and ask for reasons for their objection and we would have to work that through," he said. "If you have a named petition, it's treated differently because people on the petition have not said, other than objecting, why."

Yet many of our readers included comments on our petition form detailing their reasons for objecting to the trust's plans.

However, a spokeswoman for staff at Bransford gave a message to our readers.

"We fully appreciate their support and we ask that they keep fighting and keep it in the public gaze because it isn't over yet," she said.

Reporter Sally Jones delivered our petition to the trust's Brierley Hill headquarters as part of our Keep it Local campaign on Monday, October 1. Richard Burt, Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for West Worcestershire, slammed the consultation as a "whitewash".

"I consider this to be one of the worst consultation processes I've ever known," he said.

"There was no consultation with staff, with trade unions, with stakeholders or with anybody else, but a small group of authors, before the single proposal was put on the table.

"What this means effectively is you have no choice at all."

Liz Kabani, senior call taker and UNISON representative for Bransford, said the analysis of responses had been, in some cases "inaccurate and misleading".

She said many had been "misinterpreted" and skewed in favour of supporting the proposals.

Mrs Kabani said the process was "biased, flawed and offered no real choice" and called for a second "independent review" on which to create a new set of proposals.

She also presented the board with a report, in which she outlines the results she claims are wrong.

The board said it would consider the document.

It will meet to discuss the proposals on Wednesday, November 28, at Walsall Football Club.

Meanwhile, Mid Worcestershire MP Peter Luff has criticised Wyre Forest MP Dr Richard Taylor for backing proposals to close Bransford.

"I do not believe Dr Taylor has sufficiently thought through the implications of these proposals for all of us who live in Worcestershire," he said.

"It is strange that someone who came to office fighting for better health provision and to save local health services cannot see the dangers this move poses to people in the county.

"I wonder if he is aware that five per cent of homes in Worcestershire's rural areas are still not located on the ambulance service computer system, and that local knowledge remains essential in delivering quick response calls in emergency situations?

"I urge him to reconsider his judgement on these proposals and to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his parliamentary colleagues in the county and oppose them."

In response, Dr Taylor said he had to think of his constituents in Wyre Forest.

"The advantage of a central call centre means that if there are West Midlands ambulances nearer to my constituents than Hereford and Worcester ambulances they can automatically get there quicker," he said.

"I'm obviously very sorry for the staff at Bransford because obviously they are badly affected, but the local knowledge that's important is the knowledge of the ambulance drivers themselves and that won't be lost.

"I really believe that this ambulance call centre change in the long run will benefit the whole county."