Are East of England Ambulance Service management playing with our lives?.

In the course of today, A family member had to make use of an ambulance from the 'East of England Ambulance Service'. I got chatting to the paramedic in attendance and discovered that there had been an end-of-week meeting in which the management had announced that after October 2012, the night-cover for Colchester (pop. 179,000) is to be reduced to just 1 ambulance and that the rest of N. Essex (Clactom, Walton, Frinton and Harwich) would also be covered by just one ambulance.

Further to this. The ambulance stations at Weely and Frinton were to be closed overnight.

This decision has been made at the top level. It raises the question as to whether those at the top have ever spent any time on the front line with the crews on nightshift. Their actions are nothing short of reckless, playing with people's lives may be ok on computer simulations, but in real life the actions of a few pen-pushers may well actually lead to REAL people DIEING.

There have been reports in the local press over the last few months of people left lying waiting for ambulances for over 3 hours despite them dialing 999. In a recent incident, it took 27 minutes for an ambulance to make it from Weeley to Harwich. Unfortunately, the patient died. Will this level of (dis)service become the norm  in the future ?.

What about the Directors?. Will they be liable for prosecution for 'Corporate Manslaughter' ?.

What about the extra strain that will be placed on the reduced rank of the front-line staff struggling to deliver a life-saving service as quickly as they can. Racing from call to call with hardly time to get their head straight may well place themselves and the public under extreme risk as mental fatigue sets-in.

Anyone who has been in Colchester General Hospital at 02:00AM will have seen the ambulances queued-up outside whilst their crews wait inside with their patients waiting to moved them on to a bed and off the stretcher. These guys and girls aren't there on a break, they are there doing their job.
Based on the length of time it takes to drop a patient and clear for the next call, North Essex could become quite literally a killing-ground. Do we, as patients, really want to become pawns in a game played by accountants ?. Personally, I think not.