PATIENTS with minor injuries could soon be taken by ambulance to their nearest hospital to take the pressure off A&E departments.

The proposal, made by leading clinicians within South Worcestershire NHS Primary Care Trust, aims to reduce average waiting times.

It follows the publishing of the Department of Health's Reforming Emergency Care document, which has set new targets for trusts.

It says by March 2004 nobody should wait more than four hours in an A&E department from arrival to admission to a bed.

The average length of wait is also expected to fall to 75 minutes.

Under the new proposal, ambulances would take suitable patients to Minor Injury Units at Kidderminster, Evesham, Tenbury and Bromsgrove's Princess of Wales hospitals.

Paramedics would have to decide whether a patient's condition was treatable outside of A&E.

Injuries such as bites, minor burns, simple cuts and minor head injuries could be treated at the units, which currently do not accept patients via the ambulance service.

Steve McGuinness, director of operations at Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service Trust, said it would be in the interests of patients.

"This is long overdue and something we should support. It's sensible, right and proper."