NHS Reorganisation

I agree that such matters need to be put out to consultation, but as I have not stood as a European parliamentary candidate—or any other candidate, come to that—in that part of the country, I cannot comment on the configuration there. But it must be right for proper consultation to take place. That brings me to my final point: the proposed abolition of the ambulance service in my part of the east midlands and the creation of a new east midlands service. The hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant), who is no longer in his place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) were right to raise in this House their concerns about ambulance response times, and I have an example similar to the one given by my hon. Friend. I attended a funeral at the Gilrose crematorium, which is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. One elderly gentleman there was extremely upset, and he became very ill and collapsed. I telephoned the ambulance service and asked it to send an ambulance to take him from the crematorium literally down the road to Glenfield hospital, which is one of the finest hospitals in the country. I offered to take him in my car, but I was asked by the ambulance service operator not to do so unless I was a doctor, which clearly I am not. I said, ““I am not a doctor, I am a Member of Parliament, so could you please send the ambulance as quickly as possible.”” An hour later, the ambulance still had not arrived. Exactly the same circumstances described by my hon. Friend with regard to for the London ambulance service applied to the ambulance service in my example. Hon. Members may ask why I would want to keep a service that did not respond quickly. Well, I want to keep the service because it is a local service. It is wrong to merge it into such a large area. It is only common sense that the response times will not be as quick as those for a local service. My very final point concerns the decision by the local health authority to close the Goodwood ambulance centre in my constituency. It is a brand new centre, near the Leicester general hospital. It houses several ambulances and enables them to get to local people much more quickly. The proposal is to close that ambulance station as part of a merger that will cover the whole of Leicester, with another centre built in another part of the city—or, indeed, of the county.