Key welcomes plan for ambulance 'supertrust' (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Key welcomes plan for ambulance 'supertrust'

CONTROVERSIAL plans to form a 'super' ambulance trust serving Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Avon have been welcomed by Salisbury MP Robert Key. While many MPs in the region have criticised the merger, claiming it will sound the "death knell for local services", Mr Key said the change-over would provide a better service to the public, would create more fulfilled staff and would give an opportunity for better investment.

"This is good news from the people of south Wiltshire and for the excellent paramedics and staff of our ambulance service," he said.

"They have been crippled by unachievable government targets - I defy any ambulance to get from Salisbury to Tisbury in eight minutes - and crippled by under-investment in what is a very large, sparsely populated rural area. I have discussed this in depth with our own ambulance trust and with the chief executive of the strategic health authority and I am convinced we will get a better service as a result of this merger."

The Avon, Gloucester shire and Wiltshire strategic health authority said it had decided to recommend a single new ambulance trust over the existing three separate trusts, and this recommendation will now go before the department of health for approval. The trust will be in place in April next year and it is estimated it will save up to £1.6m a year.

The health authority said the trust would be large enough to cope with "a huge national programme of improvement and change" which places mobile healthcare at the heart of the NHS.

It said the trust would be able to operate more efficiently, so that more money could go into patient care.