Star comment: Ambulance service in Shropshire must move with the times
The For Sale signs going up at three ambulance stations across Shropshire are something to send a shiver down the spine of Salopians.
, which is a nice little injection of cash at a time when public services are being urged to cut their cloth.
But the implications of this sell-off will be felt in Shropshire long after the sales income has been forgotten and spent.
Behind the move is a profound shift away from ambulance stations which are owned, to a new network of community ambulance stations which are leased and are, it is claimed, lower maintenance and lower cost.
In addition, there are two fleet maintenance hubs – based at Abella Business Park, Shrewsbury, and in Wrekin Drive, Donnington.
It is worth noting in passing that there is no Shropshire Ambulance Service any more. The Shropshire service merged with West Midlands Ambulance Service in 2002.
There is no question that the way this county is served by its ambulance service must move with the times and adapt to the modern lie of the landscape and economic realities.
There again, the jury is still very much out on this new "hub and spoke" system. Ludlow MP Philip Dunne has already been contacted by residents worried about the slow attendance by ambulances called to 999 emergencies involving their own family members, and claiming that the new system is seeing slower response times.
In Bridgnorth, a six-week-old child who suffered a blood clot had to wait over 40 minutes for an ambulance.
The service in Bridgnorth was subsequently upgraded, but it is by these things that the wisdom of the sale of traditional ambulance stations will be judged, and not by whatever money those sales rake in.
