Paramedic base plan goes ahead

Ambulance trust managers believe the plans will help them improve their service, ensuring that crews can get to most emergencies within eight minutes.

Only four small areas of the county have been highlighted as areas where crews could take longer to arrive. They are a stretch of the Thames above Buckland, and areas between Southmoor and Wantage, around Culham railway station, and between Stonesfield and Finstock. Stations in Abingdon, Banbury, Bicester, Chipping Norton, Thame and Wantage will be sold and the money used to replace them with "resource centres", including staff training and study areas, and on-site child care.

The new bases will be in Oxford, north Oxfordshire -- probably Banbury -- and Didcot, where the existing station will be extended.

Crews will also be able to take breaks at up to 15 standby points called asaps.

Ambulance trust chief executive John Nichols said most would be portable buildings. Using them instead of the current stations would mean more of Oxfordshire would be accessible within eight minutes.

Mr Nichols said: "They work very well for this purpose, but if there was a small industrial unit where we would like to put an asap then we might use that. The areas covered have been tested and from these areas we can reach 999 emergencies within eight minutes."

Health watchdogs and unions raised concerns when the plans were first revealed last summer. Unison and the Community Health Council feared station closures would leave paramedics with nowhere to rest, and patients in rural areas would be hard to reach during shift changes, as crews returned to the three bases.

Unison convenor Phil Bolley said: "We're satisfied this will benefit patients as well as ourselves. There'll be an overlapping shift system to prevent all crews returning to base at the same time, and we have agreed compensation for staff who will have extra travelling time to and from work."

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