Rayleigh and Wickford MP Mark Francois has received a reply to a Parliamentary Written Question to the Secretary of State implying that more ambulances would be needed if the proposed reconfiguration of A&E services in South Essex goes ahead.
Mark asked “whether the budget of the East of England Ambulance Service has been increased to account for the additional workload of the Essex Success Regime hospital reconfiguration proposals?”
In reply, Philip Dunne MP, the Minister of State at the Department of Health explained that “The Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership has always accepted that the possibility of consolidating specialist services across three hospitals could require an additional ambulance capacity potentially requiring some capital investment and increase in revenue per annum.” The answer goes on to state that the ambulance service has done work to model a potential increase in work load and clinicians are still involved in this study.
Commenting on the answer, Mark Francois said:
“I think further attention needs to be given to the potential effect on the East of England Ambulance Service of the proposals to create a specialist trauma centre at Basildon Hospital and to blue light emergency cases there from Southend. I have tabled a number of questions to Ministers on this subject and this answer confirms that more ambulances and more money would be required to make this plan work. I think this needs to be further investigated, to see whether the plans are really viable or not.”