The Board is meeting on Wednesday 28th November to decide whether to go ahead with the proposed closure of the Bransford and Shrewsbury Ambulance Call Centres.
This meeting was postponed from October 9th because of pressure from campaigners. An external consultant was employed to re-evaluate the consultation feedback after complaints that many responses had been mis-classified. The consultant has reclassified some responses, but still claims that 227 responses are favourable and only 78 against. This is because 169 letters are from members of the public and staff in Warwickshire writing in support of Leamington Spa which is in fact remaining open. Without this distortion, there would be only 58 letters in favour and 78 against.
The letters forwarded by Sir Michael Spicer MP and Harriett Baldwin are almost 300 individual letters, just from the constituency of West Worcestershire. All the letters object to the loss of the local ambulance call centre at Bransford and urge the Board to restart the consultation with a range of different options.
Harriett Baldwin explained, "The West Midlands Ambulance Service persists in trying to ignore the message of 2,092 signatures from readers of the Worcester News. Their external consultant describes petitions as "blunt tools". Sir Michael and I hope that when Sir Graham Meldrum and the Board of WMAS see the pile of individual letters sent by members of the public in West Worcestershire that it will help them appreciate the strength of the objections we are hearing from the constituency served by Bransford."