999 ALSTONMOOR

BACKGROUND

Alston Moor's Community Ambulance and its dedicated crew is under threat. North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) has announced plans to take away the emergency vehicle and make the Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) redundant. This tight-knit community of around 2,500 people spread over a beautiful but remote landscape of 80 square miles is pulling together to do everything they can to stop this from happening. Alston Moor, nestled high up in the North Pennines is a popular tourist destination. An ideal base not only for Cumbria, but for visiting Northumberland, Teesdale, the Lake District and even Scotland. We want our residents to be safe, but also our very welcome day-trippers and holiday-makers.

The NHS Ambulance Standards state that the average response time for life-threatening illnesses or injuries (category 1) is seven minutes and emergency call-outs (category 2) 18 minutes. Without an ambulance and EMTs on Alston Moor it would take a MINIMUM of 40 minutes to reach the scene. That time could easily stretch to two hours or more, depending on the weather, traffic and if, through no fault of their own the ambulance sent from Penrith, Carlisle or even as far as Preston and Manchester can't find the location due to their lack of local knowledge.

This website provides information about our campaign. The background, what we've done, what we're planning to do and all the latest up-to-date news and events. Please sign our petition and email us with ideas and any other support you can offer. Most of all tell as many people as you can about the 'Save Alston Moor's Ambulance' campaign. The fight to save our services is a monumental one, but if we all work together we can win.

It is a fight we MUST win, because if we fail then there is one certain – lives will be lost!


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LATESTNEWS

Cumberland and Westmoreland Photo

Written by: | Posted on:

Thank you to the people who turned out today for the photograph with the ambulance, which will appear in the Herald this weekend.

As people have already pointed out, the short notice (first facebook post two days ago, reminder this morning), people working, self-isolating, etc. meant that numbers were never going to be high.

News has only just broken about the devastating plans that NWAS has for Alston Moor's ambulance and it's crew so thanks to our local reporter for picking up on it so quickly. He offered to send a photographer at short notice and we have to work around when is convenient for them and their deadlines. There are sure to be several follow-up articles on this very important issue and we will have more time to plan. At this stage it's vital to get the message out as quickly as possible.

We're already getting media enquiries and interest from many people, so well done to all involved so far. Considering we have a marketing / advertising budget of ZERO then we've got off to a very good start. If you have any ideas for raising the profile of our campaign and / or any skills you think will help, then please get in touch on here.