Harriett Baldwin, Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for West Worcestershire, will visit the West Midlands Ambulance Call Centre at Brierley Hill on Monday December 21st. She last visited Brierley Hill in January 2009, before the new dispatch system was introduced.
Ambulance response times in Worcestershire have struggled to meet national targets in a consistent way in the last year for a range of reasons, before improving recently. The volume of calls has been higher than expected.
The closure of the Bransford call centre and the move of Bransford-based call centre staff to Brierley Hill was controversial. The Trust has introduced a new dispatch system this year and an additional £11.8 million of funding was given to the Trust in September 2009 to help them purchase additional ambulances.
Harriett Baldwin said, "Staff at the West Midlands Ambulance Service have worked their socks off to respond to 999 calls this year, but they have struggled to achieve targets at times. Significant additional investments in technology, staff and ambulances have been needed and I am keen to see how these are working. I objected strongly to last year's closure of the Bransford call centre and I scrutinise the Trust's performance in West Worcestershire very closely. I look forward to hearing about how the recent changes could improve response times, particularly in the rural parts of West Worcestershire and on the southern border of the region with Gloucestershire."