THE founder of a life-saving emergency service has forecast people will be "dying of heart attacks and accident injuries" this autumn while ambulances ferry non-urgent cases along the Kidderminster-Worcester road.

Dr Barrie Davies, who started the flying doctor volunteer service in Wyre Forest in 1980, said he would be "shouting" to ambulance management representatives this week his fears ambulance services will not cope when hospital services are transferred away from Kidderminster.

Dr Davies said the flying doctors' team is seeking a special meeting with Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Trust director Steve McGuinness to complain flying doctors are used too often as a frontline emergency service.

The meeting follows the latest incident reported in last week's Shuttle/Times & News when a flying doctor was asked to go to a 999 call in Bewdley where a man collapsed and died in the street.

It was 24 minutes before an ambulance arrived because a shortage that day meant a vehicle had to come from Bromsgrove.

Dr Davies said although flying doctors were only meant to back up ambulances in very serious cases, they were called "regularly" to respond to 999 calls and the incidence was becoming "more and more" frequent.

One in five calls to flying doctors were not real emergencies, he claimed. The service was trying to keep within correct response times and using flying doctors to achieve the 19-minute standard limit.

"We are not here to do the ambulance service's job. We are supposed to back them when necessary," he said.

"These ambulances are going to be flying backwards and forwards between Kidderminster and Worcester with non-urgent cases while people here are dying in road accidents and of heart attacks."

A meeting between Kidderminster ambulance staff and Mr McGuinness last week has agreed a working group should be set up to monitor the ambulance operation during the transfer or services.

Kidderminster station spokesman Dave Willetts said: "The meeting was productive and we have said we will co-operate as much as we can.

"We are hoping that with training of ambulance staff now in progress Kidderminster will receive 10 more ambulance staff and paramedics."

He added: "We were reassured more resources were available but we are facing the unknown at present and we need to keep a close watch."