A NEW £100,000 ambulance service has been launched across the county which will help ease the pressure on the busiest paramedic crews in Redditch.

Two additional ambulances took to the road last week to cover a number of non-life threatening calls across Worcestershire.

Highly trained staff will take patients who need urgent treatment, but whose injuries are not life-threatening, to hospital.

The extra ambulances will allow paramedic crews to be freed up to deal specifically with 999 emergencies.

Redditch paramedic Frank Knight has welcomed the new high dependency service and said it was a very good idea.

He said: "In essence, as long as the service is kept up and running and funding for it keeps coming, it will be really great for us.

"In Redditch, the workload we have has increased dramatically and ours is the most active in the county due to an increasing static and mobile population."

Mr Knight said Redditch station was running to its full capabilities most of the time but Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service was improving the service in an effort to cope.

He said: "There are also the new team leaders who are sited at the busiest stations.

"They go in as a first responder to life- threatening calls in a smaller faster vehicle."

The chief executive of Worcestershire Health Authority, which has supported the service, Pat Archer Jones, said: "We felt the funding of this service was a priority as it will enable the Ambulance Service to improve even further the service they offer to patients in times of need."