MILITARY paramedics could be called in to answer ambulance calls in West Oxfordshire to help cope with rising demand.

Under a pilot scheme staff at RAF Brize Norton will be trained by South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) to respond to emergencies in the Witney and Carterton areas.

There are already 12 military volunteers acting as first responders for SCAS but the latest staff will be the first paramedics.

The trust said they hoped to have eight people trained by the end of next week and that they would be using a Corsa.

Responder manager Nic Morecroft said: “Staff are due to undergo training and induction within SCAS shortly. A marked vehicle will be based at RAF Brize Norton and the team will be available to respond to emergencies for SCAS when their primary role requirements allow. We are aiming for this to be during the working day as the RAF has agreed to release them should an incident occur locally.”

Brize Norton base spokeswoman Mandy Park said: “There are plans afoot for this but they are very much in their infancy.”

The scheme is the latest effort by SCAS to tackle the issue of response times in West Oxfordshire.

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It has in the last year stationed ambulances from bases in Witney, but in November bosses admitted it had done little to improve responses outside the market town itself.

The service has struggled in the district to meet the target of getting first responders to 75 per cent of Red Calls within eight minutes.

Red calls are those that are time-sensitive because a patient could be in a life-threatening condition.

In particular, 2012/13 saw the service achieve 66.45 per cent and in 2013/2014 that fell to 52.38 per cent.

SCAS has already revealed it was getting help from firefighters. Firefighters said they responded to almost 300 serious or life-threatening calls – the Red 1 and Red 2 categories – since December 21.

West Oxfordshire District Council deputy leader Mark Booty said the new scheme was a great idea.

He said: “Anything that gives people a better chance of having their clinical issues resolved more quickly can only be a good thing.

“What we need to do is drill down into the details of this scheme and see how it would really work.”

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The Brize Norton scheme was welcomed by Prime Minister and Witney MP David Cameron.

He said: “I fully support organisations working together to provide a good service for my constituents.”

Military staff at Brize Norton have been supporting SCAS by working as volunteer first responders to deal with emergency incidents for the past two years.