A THREE month consultation will start next week on plans to close Worcestershire's ambulance control room.
Today the Worcester News has launched a petition to illustrate the strength of feeling against the plans.
The board of West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust yesterday gave the go ahead for the consultation on plans to close the Emergency Operations Centres at Bransford and Shrewsbury.
Instead 999 calls from the counties would be answered at two regional centres, in Brierley Hill and Stafford, and a support centre at Leamington Spa.
The plans have sparked outrage among staff at the Bransford centre, who have already bombarded trust chiefs with comments and suggestions.
Liz Kabani, senior call taker, said: "A postcode lottery will come into play whereby the people in the Birmingham and Black Country areas will gain from these proposals but at the expense of those in Herefordshire and Worcestershire."
She added: "If Hereford and Worcester EOC and Shropshire EOC are disbanded, the West Mercia locality will have no representative control. That effects a population of 722,500 and an area of 1,512sq miles."
Staff insist local knowledge is vital to ensuring ambulances are sent to the correct addresses in the two counties, and fear staff in Brierley Hill, Stafford or Leamington Spa, would not be able to deal as effectively with 999 calls from these areas.
Mrs Kabani said: "When you get, as we regularly do, the call I'm visiting the area and am on the Malvern Hills, but I don't know where', local knowledge is invaluable.
"Postcodes don't always match and then it's useful to know that there are two Kingtons, one in each county, two Kinnersleys, one in each county, that Leominster has a letter o' in it and that Edwyn Ralph is a place not a person.
"Local knowledge saves seconds, sometimes minutes, sometimes lives."
The trust says staff from Bransford will be offered the chance to transfer to one of the other centres where they will still be able to work as a team, dispatching to Hereford and Worcester, thereby retaining local knowledge.
However, staff say not all members will want, or be able to transfer, and eventually there will be no call takers from the two counties.
The consultation period begins on Monday (JULY 2) and will run until October 1.
Anthony Marsh, chief executive officer of the trust, said: "Whatever happens, maintaining the status quo is not an option. The service is not safe as it is, therefore we must come up with some solution. I genuinely believe this is the right thing to do for patient safety."
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