Ambulance bosses to address Market Drayton council over wait times
Friday 17th September 2010, 12:09PM BST.
Ambulance bosses will be called to address north Shropshire councillors over their concerns about emergency ambulance cover in the area.
At a meeting last night, Market Drayton town councillors voted unanimously to ask senior ambulance officials to answer claims that the town was being left unmanned because ambulances were being sent to cover Shrewsbury and Telford.
During the meeting, town mayor Councillor Roger Smith read out a letter he had sent to North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson claiming Market Drayton residents faced at least a 30-minute wait for an ambulance.
His concerns were echoed by former mayor Councillor Val Taylor who revealed that she faced a two-hour wait after requesting an ambulance for her granddaughter six weeks ago.
She said: “I had reason to call an ambulance for my granddaughter and was told there was a two-hour wait.”
Councillor Smith said: “Recently, the ambulance staff based in Market Drayton have become most concerned that the station is now left unmanned for long periods of time due to the fact that Telford and Shrewsbury are now seen as higher priority areas as a result of an ambulance service change in ethos.”
Councillor Smith claimed that ambulance control centre staff had been instructed by management to ensure that three ambulances each were available “at all times” in Shrewsbury and Telford, leaving Market Drayton and other stations uncovered.
Ambulance bosses have denied there has been a reduction in emergency ambulances serving the area and said it was continuing to “dispatch its emergency resources in the most efficient way possible.”
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Sadly this does happen, West Midlands Ambulance service is playing a dangerous game of figure juggling that will surely end in an avoidable death or deaths. The population in rural Shropshire no longer matter to Ambulance service Chief executive Anthony Marsh. Resources all over Shropshire are being pulled in to Telford and to a lesser extent Shrewsbury leaving the outlying stations at Oswestry, Whitchurch, Bridgnorth, and Craven Arms as well as Market Drayton uncovered.The latest masterplan from the Ambulance service headquarters in Dudley is to close all the outlying stations and focus on Telford and Shrewsbury. The generally elderly public in the outlying areas of Shropshire are just as deserving of an ambulance in 8 minutes as the drunks and drug addicts that litter the streets of the big towns on a Saturday night and Mr Marsh would do well to remember that before he has blood on his hands that wont wash off in a hurry. Of course all this will be denied as I’m sure nothing will ever be put in writing telling the control room staff where to send resources, a little verbal bullying goes a long way if aimed in the right direction. Plausible deniability covers a multitude of sins when you play with peoples lives! It’s time for the people of rural Shropshire to stand up and fight for the service that we pay for and deserve.
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Sadly it is true, I know people who work for the Ambulance Service. It amazes me how the senior management seem hell bent on just achieving response times, at the cost of patient care and somebodies life.
What I find even more surprising why not be open about it? They just lie and twist the truth, leaving the rural market towns without Ambulances is ridiculous….. There are Police and Firefighters in all of these towns, why is the Ambulance Service different?
My family live in North Shropshire, just let an Ambulance take a long time to arrive if we need one, I’ll take action against the management concerned, I don’t know how they sleep at night. Very well probably when the Chief Executive gets 230k a year!! What a disgrace……
Note to the Ambulance Crews, well done for all your hard work and we the public do appreciate what you do!!
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My advice to the councillors and representatives of rural Shropshire is to ask to senior management of WMAS (ie those in the high tower in Dudley, the managers in Shropshire have been neutered long ago!!) if you can see the “Standby Status Plan” for Shropshire, and watch them squirm!! This plan is based on the 8 minute response/A category calls for the past few years. The whole plan revolves around the idea that you go after the A cat calls that are reachable and stuff the rest. What this translates to is pile ALL your resources into the main towns where the most work is done, and the outlying areas are left empty. To try and illustrate the point, somebody in Clun falls ill and needs a cat A response. To get there from the nearest station in Craven Arms to Clun would be very difficult in 8 minutes (if not impossible), so why bother trying!! To someone with common sense getting an ambulance there in 15 minutes is still better than 30-45 minutes because it’s coming from Shrewsbury. Sadly, in Dudleyland their target driven mantra is “A miss is as good as a mile” and common sense has long departed!! We saw this attitude a couple of years ago when Shropshire ambulances were sent in droves to Birmingham and the Black Country. The big urban areas have been and always will be busier, but the answer is not to rob Rural Peter to pay Urban Paul!!
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If people choose to live in rural parts of the country, then they cannot expect to get the services we get in the urban areas and towns. I live in Telford and don’t mind at all if the emergency services want to concentrate their manpower on my area. Bring it all on.
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Well Anthony, don’t go for a drive in the country then! I suspect you wouldn’t be a popular person there anyway to be honest. And why shouldn’t we expect the same kind of services? We pay rates just the same as you and our council tax is probably at a higher rate than yours and we have jobs as well, which most of the people in Telford who phone 999 don’t have! But to be serious for a minute, how can one life be valued more highly than another? It cant, its as simple as that and that why every person living and working in Shropshire deserves the same kind of service from the ambulance service that those in the large towns get. I’m horrified to think that outlying areas of shropshire are being left uncovered, lives will be lost and ambulance service management will be to blame!
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An interesting, if a little selfish attitude. People in rural areas pay their taxes like those of us living in urban areas. Therefore, they are entitled to a better service than the one proposed. But following your statement to it’s logical conclusion, based on response times, targets and ambulance use figures, Telford would only get a fraction of the cover it has now if this policy was to be employed across the whole of the West Midlands. If the directors of the WMAS hit all their Cat A targets in the Birmingham and Black Country urban area, they could afford to miss ALL the emergencies in Shropshire (that includes Telford) and still pass the government set targets. And that little fact has not escaped them!!
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