AN ambulance manager last night refuted claims that holidays and sickness meant only one ambulance was on standby for a town with a population of over 90,000 people.

There is concern in Hartlepool that only one of the town's three emergency crews was on duty on one day this week.

Gary Vale, associate director for accident and emergency services with the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said on that same day there were 12 ambulances on duty across Teesside and a total of 66 vehicles and crews over the entire area covered by the service.

He said: "It's not one ambulance in Hartlepool, just because that is where it comes out of. That is not to say our coverage was down to one.

"The station at Hartlepool produced one ambulance as opposed to three. Overall in the division, we have 14 ambulances but were down to 12 on coverage."

Mr Vale insisted: "We re-align the deployment of ambulances to give what is appropriate coverage at the time of need, for the whole of the patch. We had up to 66 ambulances across the whole of the patch. Like any organisation our staff are entitled to annual leave. We have been hit recently by sickness and, even though we have contingencies in the rota on ambulance cover, it is not finite.

"You are down to encouraging staff to work overtime but if they don't want to work it, that is it."

Bill Law, chief officer with Hartlepool Community Health Council, said it was worrying if back-up teams could not cover emergency calls