Later she said "I was given a full tour of the centre and met with management and with staff. I was very impressed with the high level of local knowledge and experience that the team enjoys. I could see that local knowledge would be helpful, if not vital, in this job. The floods were about to demonstrate this.
I am very grateful for everyone's time, but management were unable to answer my question - if local knowledge is not important, why not move to a single EOC for the whole country? I was told that local knowledge would be preserved by having a Hereford and Worcester sub-team in Brierley Hill. This is contradictory and unsustainable. Clearly, those local skills are likely to be lost over time as Hereford and Worcester-based staff will face a much longer commute to the other centres, and gradually the staff will be recruited elsewhere.
Secondly, I question the point in the consultation paper about increasing resilience by having fewer centres nearer the Midlands conurbation. Clearly having small, dispersed centres like Bransford allows greater resilience in the network. What is vital is that we have a substantial investment to bring in the latest technology.
This is yet another example of further regional centralisation and NHS reorganisation under Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson."
The Trust Board's proposal can be read on www.wmas.nhs.uk
Save Your EOC is on www.saveyoureoc.co.uk.
Photo: Harriett visits Bransford Ambulance Emergency Call Centre