THE proposed merger of the Gloucestershire Wiltshire and Avon Ambulance services would not only damage services at great cost but would endanger patients, Cotswold MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has told the Commons.

Speaking in a Commons debate Mr Clifton-Brown said that the proposed merger was massively unpopular among people in Gloucestershire.

He said: "The service, which currently enjoys a two-star rating, sees no advantage whatsoever in being combined with the Avon and Wiltshire services that have been classed as failing by the government."

The MP told the House that the merger would increase the demands put on the successful Gloucestershire service as it strove to bring its new partners up to speed.

Thus the service in Gloucestershire would be diminished and Wiltshire and Avon would not be improved.

He rejected the idea that advanced navigation systems could replace the knowledge of locally based ambulance drivers, and he quoted the case of a young boy in his constituency who had been rushed to hospital with severe breathing difficulties in the most dire winter conditions that made some roads impassable.

"It was primarily due to the ambulance crew's local knowledge of alternative routes that they reached hospital in good time and the boy was successfully treated. Such local knowledge would not be available under the proposed merger," he said.

He went on to highlight the current threat of replacing ambulances in rural areas with what he called "meagre car response units - essentially a paramedic and a first aid kit rather than the panoply of medical supplies and expertise that arrives when a fully equipped ambulance pulls up."

"It is testimony to how little attention is being paid to the essential needs of patients in Gloucestershire," said Mr Clifton-Brown.

Dr Stephen Ladyman, speaking for the Government, admitted: "I have no knowledge or experience at all of conditions in Gloucestershire."

Mr Clifton-Brown added: "This government is determined to pursue its unpopular European-style regional agenda and abolish our county services by stealth.

"We have seen it in our fire service, now the ambulance service and our police cannot be far behind.

"In this process the cities receive all the funding and the rural areas receive worse and worse services. Meanwhile, the lives of my constituents are being put at risk."