Uncertainty surrounds who will organise and pay for the county’s ambulance service when Primary Care Trusts are abolished.

The PCTs are due to be scrapped in April 2013 and replaced by Clinical Comm-issioning Groups (CCGs), comprising mainly of GPs, under the Government’s shake-up of the NHS.

Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS), which covers Wiltshire, Avon and Gloucestershire, is funded by seven PCTs in the patch. Under new arrangements, there will be nine CCGs.

GWAS is looking to merge with the South Western Ambulance Service, which covers Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall.

In the South Western patch there are seven Primary Care Trusts and these will be replaced by 11 CCGS.

At the moment, in both areas, one PCT represents the others – called the lead commissioner – to negotiate the funding contract with the ambulance service.

But NHS bosses say it has not yet been decided how, or even if, a lead commissioner for the CCGs would be chosen.

A spokesman said no decisions had been made at this stage concerning CCG commissioning of ambulance services in 2013/14.

Albert Weager, chairman of the joint working group for Local Involvement Net-works representing patients in the GWAS area, said: “My personal opinion is there is so much uncertainty. It’s difficult to imagine how it’s going to work.”

Ken Wenman, the interim chief executive of GWAS and chief executive of South Wes-tern Ambulance Service, told a public meeting of Wiltshire Involvement Network in Devizes that merging GWAS and South Western would lead to better performance.

He said: “South Western is one of the best performing ambulance services. It has always met its performance standards over the past six years and financial targets. We believe the two organisations together will be a stronger organisation.

“We will achieve the ambulance service quality indicators in the medium term. We want to achieve all the response times in the first year of operation.

“We want to deliver combined management costs of six per cent in the medium term. GWAS spends 10 per cent of its income on managers, while South Western spends six per cent.”

Two retired ambulance staff in Wiltshire – Ian Hunt of Trowbridge and Dennis Overton of Hilperton – fear ambulances will be sent into South Western’s region.

But Mr Wenman said: “There’s absolutely no plan to transfer the resources more thinly. On the contrary, the only way re-investment can happen is through a merger.”

Mr Wenman said if it was approved, the merger could happen in October.