Baby scare family in petition for Bridgnorth ambulance return

Little Thomas Passant was taken to hospital in Telford and then Birmingham with a blood clot on his heart. Grandfather Paul Passant said they had to wait more than an hour – a claim denied by the ambulance service.

Bosses said a paramedic had been with Thomas within 15 minutes after he was taken ill on December 17, and that an ambulance arrived after 41 minutes.

Mr Passant said Thomas' parents, Kate Oram and Matthew Passant, were left to worry as the ambulance had to travel from Donnington in Telford.

He said: "Bridgnorth did not have a paramedic in the area on the day.

"The Bridgnorth station is up for sale and the next nearest station was Tweedale, but that has closed.

"We were promised all the towns in Shropshire that lost their station would have a 24-hour a day paramedic available.

"In no way am I knocking the paramedics or their service, we are just angry at the length of time it took for a resource to reach us."

Thomas is now recovering and the family has launched a petition asking for a full- time ambulance in Bridgnorth.

A spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said a call was received at 12.47pm on December 17.

She said: "Due to the level of demand at the time of the call, every ambulance in Shropshire was committed to a patient.

"The nearest resource was a community paramedic in Tweedale who was duly sent and arrived 15 minutes after the start of the call and began to treat the boy.

"Throughout all this time, the control room continued to search for an available ambulance.

"The first available was at Donnington at 1.09pm, which arrived at the address at 1.28pm, 41 minutes after the time of the call. To return to a Bridgnorth Ambulance would in fact be detrimental to the speed and quality of the service."

Bridgnorth lost its dedicated ambulance station in April and has been covered from a new community station in Faraday Drive in recent months.

An ambulance is not always at the site.

By James Fisher