THE future of Leyburn's fast response and paramedic service was in doubt this week.

The "revolutionary" new community response scheme launched with a fanfare at Castle Bolton last August has been abandoned before the first teams of volunteers have finished their training.

Phil Bainbridge, the assistant general manager for the Dales area of the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust (Tenyas) told the Lower Wensleydale parish forum last week that the Yorlife scheme would not now be set up. "The money is not there," he said.

Three pilot teams were being trained, one of them based in Redmire where 14 people had already completed about 500 hours of training between them.

The Redmire leader, Phil Oliver, said of Tenyas: "They have failed us. I first started talking to the ambulance service three years ago. I was asking about a first responder group of six to eight people with a defibrillators. We already had six people sufficiently qualified. They came back and said they wanted to do Yorlife."

This involved 50 hours of training per person in basic trauma care, management of airways, care of sudden illness patients, the management of cardiac emergencies and how to use defibrillators.

They would also be trained to use the fast response car so that they could work with the paramedic in Leyburn to provide 24- hour cover to the villages from Leyburn into mid-Wensleydale.

That car is now in Leyburn with paramedic Peter Shaw working 40 hours a week.

Tenyas' director of patient services, Tim Lynch, said: "This was always a developing project and we have adapted the original concept in order to be more responsive to local needs and to provide better patient care.

"Our aim is to establish a series of community first-responder schemes, more of them and much closer to communities they serve, in the more isolated areas of Wensleydale and Swaledale.'

These small village teams would use their own cars and be equipped with defibrillators.

"We have done exactly what we have been asked to do without any cost to them," said Mr Oliver. "They are now seeking funds from the PCT for the paramedic at Leyburn. We are in total disarray."

The chairman of the Community Health Council, David Bolam, emphasised the need for the rapid response vehicle in such a isolated rural area.