By-election candidate calls for fund to reverse ambulance station closures

That's the message from Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat candidate in next week’s North Shropshire by-election, who has called on the government to set up a Community Ambulance Fund.

The proposal forms part of an emergency five-point plan to tackle the growing crisis of ambulance delays which are leaving seriously ill patients across North Shropshire waiting hours to be treated.

As well as the the new fund, there would be a new law to increase transparency over waiting times and a new campaign to recruit more paramedics and other ambulance staff.

Daisy Cooper, the party’s Health and Care Spokesperson, has today also written to the chair of the Care and Quality Commission, urging him to launch an inspection into deadly ambulance service delays.

New official figures reveal that ambulance response times to emergency 999 calls in the West Midlands are exceeding government pledges. In November, the average response time for local Category 2 calls (emergencies involving a serious condition such as a stroke or chest pain) was 39 minutes 25 seconds – more than double the 18-minute target.

Meanwhile, 430 patients across the Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin area spent more than 30 minutes waiting to be handed over from an ambulance to A&E last week. 293 of them were waiting for more than an hour.

Mrs Morgan said: “Next Thursday residents in our area have the golden chance to vote to demand better for our local health services that have been taken for granted for far too long.

“If elected to be our area's next MP, I have a plan for tackling the ambulance crisis we face. This would be my number one priority. We need change.

“After decades of neglect, it's clearer than ever that the Conservatives here have run our services into the ground. We need to send a message that this failure is not good enough.”