Extra ambulance cover promised
By Jo Deeks on Thursday, 16th September 1999.
HAVERHILL will get more hours of cover when rotas come into effect next February, ambulance chiefs have promised.
Recently, the East Anglian Ambulance Trust that paramedic Bob Tuck would be on 24-hour call from his home in Haverhill, starting next month in a bid to get response times down.
If the six-month pilot scheme is successful it will be extended and expanded to cover other areas.
Colin Jones, a long-standing ambulance campaigner had expressed his concern that the scheme would be instead of the extra hours of ambulance cover that Haverhill was promised last November.
Mr Jones welcomed the paramedic scheme, but felt it should be additional to the extra hours, not a substitute.
He also called for another public meeting to be held so that people could be updated on ambulance provision for the town.
"They are putting up all sorts of smoke screens and diversions, but I would ask when will they install the promised hours that should have been provided by May or June this year. Will they give us an undertaking to restore 24-hour cover based in Haverhill?
"They have taken things away and they need to be reinstated, or it is a net loss. I welcome very much the paramedic as an addition, not instead of the promised hours.
"I think they are putting up a superficial scheme to deal with the problem of response times, rather than dealing with the issue of providing a better ambulance service. It is like putting a finger in a bursting dam," Mr Jones said.
But a spokesman for the trust said the paramedic pilot scheme was completely outside of normal rotas and efforts were being made to provide as many extra hours as possible in Haverhill.
In line with the whole of Suffolk, the town would receive some of the hundreds of extra hours of cover being provided from December 6 to January 16 to cover the Millennium period.
The trust was also introducing a new system of team working which involved new rotas, increasing the number of hours in Haverhill up to the maximum in February next year.
The trust would be happy to attend a meeting in the town if there was a call from the public for them to do so, he said.
Recently, the East Anglian Ambulance Trust that paramedic Bob Tuck would be on 24-hour call from his home in Haverhill, starting next month in a bid to get response times down.
If the six-month pilot scheme is successful it will be extended and expanded to cover other areas.
Colin Jones, a long-standing ambulance campaigner had expressed his concern that the scheme would be instead of the extra hours of ambulance cover that Haverhill was promised last November.
Mr Jones welcomed the paramedic scheme, but felt it should be additional to the extra hours, not a substitute.
He also called for another public meeting to be held so that people could be updated on ambulance provision for the town.
"They are putting up all sorts of smoke screens and diversions, but I would ask when will they install the promised hours that should have been provided by May or June this year. Will they give us an undertaking to restore 24-hour cover based in Haverhill?
"They have taken things away and they need to be reinstated, or it is a net loss. I welcome very much the paramedic as an addition, not instead of the promised hours.
"I think they are putting up a superficial scheme to deal with the problem of response times, rather than dealing with the issue of providing a better ambulance service. It is like putting a finger in a bursting dam," Mr Jones said.
But a spokesman for the trust said the paramedic pilot scheme was completely outside of normal rotas and efforts were being made to provide as many extra hours as possible in Haverhill.
In line with the whole of Suffolk, the town would receive some of the hundreds of extra hours of cover being provided from December 6 to January 16 to cover the Millennium period.
The trust was also introducing a new system of team working which involved new rotas, increasing the number of hours in Haverhill up to the maximum in February next year.
The trust would be happy to attend a meeting in the town if there was a call from the public for them to do so, he said.
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