News Release

16th February 2007

AMBULANCE SERVICES TO MERGE UNDER FALSE PRETENCES

"The West Midlands Ambulance Service announcement that 'convergence criteria have been agreed to allow the Staffordshire Ambulance Service to be absorbed into the West Midlands Ambulance Service' is a betrayal of the most dangerous kind to people living in Staffordshire and must be a disappointment to those living in the West Midlands", says Michael Fabricant.

"The most important criterion to be achieved by any ambulance service is the speed by which it can get an ambulance with paramedics to a victim in an extreme emergency such as a heart attack or stroke. This is expressed as a percentage of the time it can meet the 8 minute national target to reach a patient. According to figures quoted by the West Midlands Ambulance Service, despite being a sparsely populated county, Staffordshire achieves this 87% of the time. The West Midlands barely reaches emergency patients 77% of the time. However, as the national target is only 75%, the time is now being deemed ripe to swallow up the award winning Staffordshire Service effectively dumming it down. Indeed, the national target of reaching emergency victims within 8 minutes only 75% of the time, which the West Midlands Ambulance Service sets such great store by, is considered laughable if not lethal in most of northern Europe and the United States.

"In meetings I have had with Anthony Marsh, Chief Executive of the West Midlands Ambulance Service, I have made it quite clear that I am not against a regional merger in principle if it will lead to an improvement of the service. But to merge a high performing Ambulance Service with one which still barely meets national criteria is a betrayal of promises Tony Blair, Patricia Hewitt, and the West Midlands Ambulance Service have consistently made to Staffordshire MPs.

"Up until now the understanding has been that no merger will take place until the West Midlands Ambulance Service could demonstrate that they can consistently perform to the same standards as the Staffordshire Service. It would seem that Ambulance Chiefs now feel that this is unachievable. This is not only a betrayal of the trust of the people of Staffordshire, but of the West Midlands as a whole which had such high hopes.