I WRITE in connection with an article you ran recently ‘Rural areas ‘at risk’ in plans to merge forces’.
I find it disappointing that someone of Councillor Sharon Gibbons’ standing would speak so ill of a service that is, without question, one of the most effective ambulance services in the country, not just in the built-up areas but also rural ones.
It is almost 20 years since West Midlands Ambulance Service was created and in that time countless lives have been saved because it is a regional service.
Lives that would almost certainly have been lost had it been either a county service or the old Hereford and Worcester service.
While Cllr Gibbons is right that we are not meeting our response times, as we did regularly prior to Covid, she fails to note the reason why and it has nothing to do with being a regional service.
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Last winter we were regularly losing over 1,000 hours a day due to how long it was taking our crews to hand patients over to hospitals — the worst delays in the country.
In layman’s terms that is the equivalent of taking up to 100 ambulances off the road and parking them in a field and choosing not to use them that day.
It is an appalling situation and not something that ever happened before the pandemic and is certainly completely unrelated to being a regional service.
Indeed, had we not been a regional service and able to bring resources from across the West Midlands then patients would have waited considerably longer for a response in Worcestershire.
If anything this is a sign of how valuable a regional service has been to people in Worcestershire.
Cllr Gibbons also suggests that morale is poor which is curious as we have the lowest staff turnover rate of any ambulance service.
It is amongst the lowest in the entire NHS.
Hardly a sign that staff are desperate to leave.
Another benefit of being a regional service has been developing our hubs which ensures our highly-trained ambulance staff treat patients rather than spend time cleaning and restocking ambulances as used to happen.
We now have dedicated staff who do this.
In extreme weather we are able to provide specialist support for the very reason that we are a regional service.
A county service would not have the ability to provide dedicated 4x4 ambulances and response vehicles in the number we can.
There would be no hazardous area response team able to provide medical care in collapsed buildings, in fast flowing rivers or in chemical incidents.
We can co-ordinate the use of no fewer than six air ambulances and get patients to specialist medical centres in a way that would not have been possible had we not been a regional service.
Our control room is the best in the country answering calls faster than at any time in the history of the ambulance service, providing patients with clinical advice in a way never before achieved, never mind the systems in place to maintain essential functions during and after a disaster or disruption, something that was certainly not in place prior to the regional service coming into existence.
The value of a regional ambulance service should not be underestimated.
Many lives have been saved because we are one.
In the same way that I can’t comment about a regional police service because I don’t work in that field, it would perhaps have been better for Cllr Gibbons to stick to commenting about an area that I am sure she does have detailed knowledge of given her previous experience — the police.
Murray MacGregor
West Midlands Ambulance Service communications director
What do you think? Let us know in the comments.
