AFTER the article (LET, February 1), I wonder just how stupid Hazel Harding thinks the people of East Lancashire are.

The shake-up of A&E services in this area has been an unmitigated disaster. Even the appalling figures published don’t tell the true story.

The increasing use of single- manned, fast-response vehicles by the ambulance service is just a way of covering up the true response times. How many of the public are aware that as soon as a fast response vehicle arrives at the scene of an emergency, the clock stops and that is counted as the response time?

These vehicles, though manned by highly trained and dedicated paramedics, can only offer a stabilisation and reassurance service at best.

They cannot in any event transport those in desperate need of urgent hospital treatment. That has to be done by a fully crewed, double-manned paramedic unit. That vehicle could take another half-hour or more to arrive on scene.

If the response time was taken from the arrival of a vehicle capable of transporting the patient, the response time targets would be missed by more like 50%.

I am sure that ambulance staff are sick of wearing a groove in the M65. They are, in the main, consummate professionals who strive to provide a first class service to the public. They are not to blame for this mess.

People are having to wait in agony, sometimes on that very fine line between life and death, whilst those like Hazel Harding bury their heads in the sand, and deny all responsibility for the shambolic state of the A&E service in this area.

Time and again these people refuse to have a full and public inquiry into this situation. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out why. An inquiry would prove beyond doubt that this “rationalisation of services” is the worst disaster to affect our local health services in the recent history of the NHS.

Ken Broom, Nelson.