On Monday, October 19, I attended a public consultation meeting on the proposed changes to Lincolnshire Ambulance Service.
I am sorry to say that the meeting was poorly attended, possibly because of the lack of advertising by the directors of the East Midlands Ambulance Service.
In Lincolnshire we currently have 18 ambulance stations, in the whole of the East Midlands there are 66 stations. The proposal is to close all ambulance stations and build Hubs, or as it was put to the meeting “super stations”. The nearest hub to Grantham would be at Sleaford, not Grantham.Grantham would have either a Community Ambulance Post or a Standby Point.
EMAS has a budget of £150 million. To upgrade all the ambulance stations would cost £13 million, to build a hub would cost £2 million each, £26 million in total. That is double the cost to upgrade all the existing ambulance stations.
To have a hub 15 miles away, we will lose our existing ambulance station, which can hold up to three ambulances, and have to settle for either a Community Ambulance Post or a Standby Point, with only one ambulance.
I truly believe this will put people’s lives at risk and I strongly urge people to go to the next consultation meeting.
Mark Bartlett
Valley Road, Grantham