Ambulance service denies switch rumour

Bryan Copland • Published 19 Jan 2012 09:27 1 Comment

SPECULATION that two ambulances based in Haddington were set to move to Musselburgh within the next month has been denied by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS).

However, the organisation says that changes may still come about this summer when it will be forced to vacate its current Honest Toun base.

On December 2, the Courier reported how the SAS had been considering moving one of the three ambulances from its Haddington base to Musselburgh, where there is currently one vehicle.

The SAS will have to vacate its current Musselburgh base, at Edenhall Hospital,

as part of the hospital's closure this summer, moving to another base within the town or in Wallyford.

However, the SAS had said that there were "no immediate plans" to make changes to the provision of ambulances in either town and said changes would only be made if it meant an overall improvement in the service it provides.

But on Monday, Councillor Paul McLennan - East Lothian Council leader - told Dunbar community councillors he had had an "interesting discussion" with a "current ambulance man" and said that two ambulances would be moving from Haddington to Musselburgh "within the next month".

When contacted by the Courier, a spokesman for the SAS said the claims were untrue. "We do have to vacate the Musselburgh station, by probably around July," he said.

"July is the soonest that any reconfiguration is likely to occur. We've made no decisions on what will go where - that will depend on where we move Musselburgh to.

"There are no plans to move anything anywhere at any point in the near future."

Mr McLennan later told the Courier the information had come from an ambulance driver.

He has asked an SNP MSP to table a parliamentary question about ambulance response times to the east of the county, and then hopes to meet with the SAS at the end of the month to push it on its future plans.

"Certainly, the information I had [was that the plans were] almost a given and that was the decision that's been made," he added.

"Hopefully I will get the answers to the parliamentary questions. That would give me some information [to put to the SAS]."

Two representatives of Dunbar Community Council were due to visit the SAS's Emergency Medical Dispatch Centre in South Queensferry yesterday, after the group had raised concerns over waiting times for emergency calls in the Dunbar area.

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  paramedic
  1 post
  Jan 19, 12:04
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  maybe our councillors/msp's should also be asking why so many calls in East Lothian especially Dunbar are attended to by ambulances from the Borders especially Chirnside who take about 25 minutes to get to Dunbar, if crews where moved to Musselburgh this would leave Dunbar with even less cover
  
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