TODAY we launch the fight to save Worcestershire's ambulance control room.

Health bosses want to close the centre in Bransford and instead answer 999 calls up to 61 miles away in Stafford or Brierley Hill, near Dudley.

Union leaders say they fear hundreds of lives will be put at risk if the West Midlands Ambulance Service goes ahead with its plan.

Andy Kibble, branch secretary for union Unison, said staff at the two regional control centres would lack crucial local knowledge to deal with calls quickly.

"This could seriously endanger lives," he said.

"All our staff know the area extremely well - they live in the two counties. If some little old lady calls for an ambulance from Kington because from page one her husband has had a heart attack, she wants to know that the person on the end of the phone knows exactly where she is and doesn't want to have to explain.

"We can ill-afford to spend time trying to clarify locations. It could be the difference between life and death."

The trust insists modern satellite navigation systems will replace control staff with local knowledge.

But Mr Kibble, an ambulance technician at Ledbury, said such systems were not reliable and often directed ambulances down dead ends.

He said: "We also have a lot of double addresses in the area, which our staff know about. The trust says they will use postcodes, but not everyone knows their postcode, or even exactly where they are at the time they make the call."

West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust is meeting today to discuss the plans. If its board gives the go-ahead, a three-month consultation will take place and a final decision is expected in October. It is believed Bransford would close early next year. A centre in Shropshire is also threatened with closure.

As reported on Saturday, the plan has won the support of city MP Mike Foster.

But Peter Luff, MP for mid-Worcestershire, said: "I am furious about this. Staff already cover a large enough area from Bransford. To then close that and have just two call centres covering the entire West Midlands is ridiculous."

But trust spokesman Murray MacGregor denied local knowledge was necessary.

"When someone makes a phone call we can pinpoint their location from the telephone number, be it a landline or mobile," he said.

"This argument would mean we'd only ever employ people with a vast local knowledge and would have to regularly test workers on their local knowledge."

The trust insists the plans are aimed at improving patient safety, especially in the event of a major disaster such as the M42 crash in March 1997 when three people died, 21 were seriously injured and a further 83 received minor injuries.

On that day, there were just three operators on duty at Bransford. Ambulances from neighbouring counties were called to help, but operators at Bransford had to stop answering 999 calls to request the back-up.

The proposed regional centres would be large enough to organise cover and answer all 999 calls during such an incident.

* More than 10,000 people have already signed a petition in Shropshire to keep its call centre and a campaign website has been set up.

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