MP to meet with health minister over ambulance crisis

Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, said she has secured a meeting with Health Minister Edward Argar following a parliamentary debate on the state of the county's ambulance service.

Mrs Morgan, who was elected after making ambulance service improvement a key part of her election campaign, said it was a “major step forward”.

No date has yet been set for the meeting, which is likely to be scheduled after parliamentary recess.

Responding to Mrs Morgan’s speech in parliament, Mr Argar had said that he was “happy to meet her and her fellow Shropshire MPs, together with the ambulance trust, to discuss their collective concerns or reflections that they would like to put to me as a minister.”

There have been consistent concerns over ambulance response times in Shropshire over recent months.

West Midlands Ambulance Service has spoken openly of the struggles is currently facing, admitting it is not happy with the standard of service and response times.

The situation is being affected by a chain of circumstances in the local health system with hospitals facing difficulties in discharging healthy patients because of a lack of community beds, and in turn then struggling to admit patients due to a lack of space, leading to ambulances queuing up outside both Princess Royal and Royal Shrewsbury hospitals.

Mrs Morgan welcomed the prospect of discussions on efforts to tackle the issues.

She said: “I’m grateful to the Health Minister for agreeing to meet with me and my fellow Shropshire MPs. This is a major step forward in our efforts to fix Shropshire’s ambulance crisis.

"I will be urging the Minister to do all he can to fix this crisis. Including offering up more granular data so we can understand where the delays are, and how best we can prevent them.

"I look forward to talking with him, and continuing to hold this government to account on Shropshire’s ambulance crisis and so much more."