Funding to improve ambulance service (From Warrington Guardian)

Funding to improve ambulance service

MORE than £2.5 million is to be invested in Mersey Regional Ambulance Service (MRAS) as part of a package to improve response times and modernise services.

MRAS says the cash, available from April 2004, will be used specifically to improve call answering services, meet national response time targets, improve clinical services and provide state-of-the-art technology systems to improve deployment.

Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in Cheshire and Merseyside have agreed to the investment package for MRAS in the hope that people benefit from what they think will be one of the best emergency ambulance services in the country.

MRAS reported a 35 per cent increase in the numbers of 999 calls since 1997.

Mike Pyrah, chief executive of Central Cheshire PCT, said: "We recognise the increasingly important role the service is playing in frontline primary patient care and this investment is a reflection of that widening agenda.

"As a group of PCTs we believe this additional investment will enable the service to develop a clear and consistent modernisation and performance improvement programme."

From April, MRAS will recruit more staff to work in emergency control, recruit more paramedics and ambulance technicians, and increasing the number of emergency ambulances to respond to emergency as well as routine calls.

Janet Davies, chief executive of MRAS, said: "I envisage that this investment will be used to increase the number of people and vehicles we have. "However, it will also be firmly linked to modernisation - in others words working smarter and harder and doing things a little differently."

MRAS says that modernisation is likely to involve initiatives that focus on "sending the right people with the right skills to treat the condition."

rfraser@guardiangrp.co.uk