AMBULANCE TRUST ADMIT DROP IN PERFORMANCE

9.28.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 29th Feb 2008

Challenged by Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Richard Burt, a West Midlands Ambulance Trust spokesman yesterday admitted there had been an 11% drop in performance for call handling when 999 calls were transferred to Brierley Hill in the Black County from Shropshire.

Mr Burt said the figures had been revealed by a 'senior figure in authority' within the Ambulance service and gave cause for concern about public safety if Bransford were to close.

Richard Burt said: "This admission has been wrung from the Trust and underlines the importance of local knowledge and local teamwork, which has been central to our campaign to save Bransford.

"For the first two weeks since the transfer of 999 calls from Shropshire there was a serious drop in performance from the point of receiving emergency calls to the allocation of an ambulance and crew, forcing the Trust to take steps to get more call takers with local knowledge into the Black Country control.

"Eleven per cent extra call processing time may only add and extra 3 or 4 seconds averaged over 1000 calls, but it is the handful of cases when ambulance turnouts are delayed by minutes that pushes the average up, and minutes costs lives."