News Release

8th August 2006

LEAKED MEMO REVEALS STAFFS AMBULANCE TAKEOVER

A leaked memo from the Department of Health, signed by a senior civil servant on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health, makes it clear that steps are already underway to absorb the Staffordshire Ambulance Service into the 'inferior' West Midlands Service. "Using the powers of the 1999 Health Act, the Chief Executive of the West Midlands Ambulance Service must now be invited to attend Board Meetings of the Staffordshire Ambulance Service and his 'advice', I would call them 'instructions', must be taken in all important decisions. In addition, there will be joint control of personnel, finance, and I.T. functions. This is a take-over in all but name" says Michael Fabricant.

"When the merger of Ambulance Services was first announced, the Government assured Staffordshire MPs that the absorption of the Staffordshire Ambulance Service in the West Midlands service would not take place for 2 years. Then the Government said that while the take-over would still go ahead, it had been kicked into the long grass. Now the memo reveals that the take-over has already begun.

"I am disappointed that some MPs in Staffordshire who said they would go to the wire on this are now already weakly backing down. And I applaud those few Labour MPs in Staffordshire who are still opposing the Government and their illogical attempts to regionalise public services. What a shame that this merger is not going the way of the proposed - and now quickly abandoned - police merger.