"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.

"I will now raise this matter again in Parliament and will be calling
for yet another emergency debate following on from the debate I
initiated when drugs were withdrawn from Community First Responders in
Staffordshire." Most of these drugs were later restored.