Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Berwick, is meeting senior representatives from the North East Ambulance Service this afternoon for urgent talks over ambulance provision in North Northumberland.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan asked for the meeting following growing concerns about ambulance response times across North Northumberland, and in the aftermath of the death of a 16 year old, road traffic accident victim, in Berwick, where it apparently took twenty six minutes for an ambulance to arrive despite indications from local people that there was an ambulance already on standby in the town at the time.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan said; "I have called this meeting as it is very clear that something is very seriously wrong. I am determined to get to the bottom of this as there are various rumours flying about and this is literally a life and death matter. I want to know why the systems do not appear to be working as well as they used to and ascertain whether ambulance service in North Northumberland is being compromised by pressure to hit certain targets, which are more easily achieved by concentrating on the more populated areas towards the southern part of the county".