A WORCESTERSHIRE politician who spent a night watching the ambulance service at work says its performance is improving.

Harriett Baldwin, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for West Worcestershire, spent Saturday night with frontline staff from the West Midlands Ambulance Service, following concerns over the closure of the Bransford Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), near Worcester.

Mrs Baldwin praised the “sheer hard work and dedication” of staff in helping to improve response times after problems in December which ambulance bosses blamed on unprecedented numbers of emergency calls – but some staff blamed the closure of the Bransford EOC on December 1.

Local residents, ambulance trust staff and your Worcester News all campaigned hard to save the EOC, maintaining it was better that calls were handled by local people who knew the area.

Staff also say the computer system at Brierley Hill, near Dudley, which now handles emergency calls for Worcestershire, is not as good as the one used at Bransford – a view shared by one of the trust’s senior board members, locality director Derek Laird.

But Mrs Baldwin said many of the initial difficulties of the move are now being addressed.

Working with paramedic team leader Mike Belcher, Mrs Baldwin began the evening at Pershore Ambulance Station and moved into Worcester to be ready for the evening calls.

She said: “It was a relatively quiet evening and the calls attended were related to too much alcohol intake. No one needed hospital treatment. Although the Brierley Hill computer system is recognised as being sub-standard, the teething difficulties from December seem to have been worked through. With work and dedication, staff have adapted and response times are settling down at acceptable levels.”

The new computer system at Brierley Hill is scheduled to be operational in April or May. Mrs Baldwin said she would continue to scrutinise the trust’s performance figures.

Computer problems: what you say

THE admission that a computer system now being used for handling Worcestershire’s 999 calls is worse than the one it replaced has sparked anger from Worcester News readers.

We reported recently how ambulance chief Derek Laird admitted the computer system at the regional control centre at Brierley Hill, near Dudley, is not as good as the old one at Bransford’s Emergency Operations Centre (EOC), which closed on December 1 last year.

Trust bosses blamed poor response times to 999 calls in December on the high volume of calls. But some staff blamed the situation, in part, on the computer system at Brierley Hill – an argument denied by the trust’s communications director Murray MacGregor.

Mr Laird, a locality director at the ambulance trust, admitted last month that the computer-aided dispatch system (CAD) at Brierley Hill was “considerably worse” than the old system at Bransford and this, combined with the high volume of calls, had made things difficult for ambulance crews.

The new CAD system is expected to be in place in Brierley Hill in April or May.

Mack18 of Worcester said on the Worcester News website: “Let’s all hope we don’t need the services of an ambulance until sometime in May, then.”

Exbransford employee said: “Very disappointing. In May things won’t improve because there will be a period where the staff will be getting used to the new system so we will have what happened in December happen all over again, perhaps not to the same extent though.”

Skychip, Worcester, said: “Time the truth came out – I find the whole situation very worrying.”

And Jb of Worcester said: “Who are these idiots who sit behind their desks playing with their calculators while the troops at the sharp end are fighting against the system to do their jobs and help save lives?”