CAMPAIGNERS who want to retain double paramedic-crewed ambulances in the Durham dales have said rural residents should not be penalised because of a national shortage of trained staff.

Joy Urwin, a member of the Durham dales Rural Ambulance Group, said the North East Ambulance Service’s (NEAS) inability to recruit sufficient paramedics should not be used to justify a reduction in paramedic-crewed vehicles in Weardale and Teesdale.

She also called for GP commissioners to listen to the views of local paramedics and doctors who have called for double paramedic crews to be retained during a series of public meetings.

GP commissioners want to scrap double paramedic-crewed ambulances in the Durham dales and replace them with vehicles crewed by one paramedic and one emergency care assistant in a bid to ensure that more ambulances across a wider area of County Durham have at least one paramedic on board.

This is in order to reduce response times, which currently lag well below the national target of 75 per cent of all emergency calls reached within eight minutes.

The Durham Dales, Easington and Sedgefield Clinical Commissioning Group has decided to put plans to phase out double paramedic-crewed ambulances on hold until 2016 to allow an independent clinical review of the proposed changes to take place.

Mrs Urwin, who lives in Westgate, in Upper Weardale, said while the group welcomed the CCG’s decision to “listen to public opinion and rethink these proposals” she said the rationale behind the move was “highly flawed and lacked supporting evidence”.

At a public meeting held at Middleton-in-Teesdale to discuss the plans, Dr Alex Johnston, an accident and emergency consultant from James Cook University Hospital said: “Complex, multi-condition, time-critical episodes require two paramedics.”

A spokeswoman for NEAS said: “There is currently a national shortage of paramedics across the UK, which affects all ambulance services.

"This is due to a change in the amount of training paramedics have to do before they become qualified, as the treatments they deliver become more skilled.

“The current two-year training period has created a temporary lag in the system. NEAS aims to have a full complement of paramedics by 2016.

“Clearly, restructuring the make-up of two ambulance crews in The Dales will not make a major impact – but that has never been the rationale behind the suggestion. The intention is to provide more available resources for The Dales area alone.”