Consultation to launch on proposed closure of Air Ambulance base in Welshpool

In a meeting of the Emergency Ambulance Service Committee it was announced that the public consultation on the plans would start on January 9.

The consultation will be conducted over several stages, beginning with a six-week period of public engagement, a review before another fortnight of consultation.

After this there will be a final review and a final recommendation. However chief ambulance service commissioner Stephen Harrhy said: “Methods of engagement have yet to be fully decided.”

Mr Harrhy said he wanted to make sure that going into any public engagement that there was a full understanding of the current service, options of what could be done improve the service without closing any of the bases and a clear picture of what would happen if the bases were to close.

The chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, Carol Shillabeer, said that she wants “to develop an engagement process that engaged as many members of the public as possible.”

Ms Shillabeer also asked that accompanying document be made as easy to understand as possible to aid the consultation process.

Deputy chief ambulance service commissioner, Ross Whitehead, confirmed that further analysis would be needed between now and the consultation.

Mr Whitehead said the analysis would look at how the current sites could be improved to meet more of the demand across Wales as well as looking other factors such as the effect of bad weather and use of the rapid response vehicles that the charity uses alongside its helicopters.

It was also confirmed that the proposal to close the Welshpool and Caernarfon bases was not related to the new Helicopter contracts being taken up by the charity next year.

According to the information released at the meeting the only criteria for the new contracts was that there would have to be four aircraft and that that would have the ability fly at night.