Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the recently-elected MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, today raised the issue of poor ambulance response times across North Northumberland and repeated her call for an urgent review of the protocol which prevents paramedics being called to attend even category one emergencies if they are on breaks. Anne-Marie Trevelyan raised these issues during health questions in the House of Commons to the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan highlighted the case of 16 year old, road accident victim, Kyle Lowes who died after paramedics took 26 minutes reaching him. It later emerged that there was an ambulance four minutes away in Berwick but, the call was not put through to them, in line with a protocol agreed with the Unions in 2004, as the crew were on a scheduled break.
In response, Jeremy Hunt welcomed Anne-Marie Trevelyan's work campaigning on these matters and agreed to urgently review the situation and said; "That is a tragic case and we need to look at those rules. I will take that up..".