Fabricant in call on 999 drugs

Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant has called for an explanation why the county's ambulance service is the only one in the country to have barred certain drugs and equipment.

His demand follows a letter from Ambulance Chairman Robert Lake saying that the service provided in the county remain at a high standard.

Mr Lake adds that the number of drugs which can be adminstered by Community First Responders was reduced on the grounds of patient safety.

But Mr Fabricant said: "No explanation is given why, since the partnership with the West Midlands Ambulance Service began, drugs and equipment still in use with other ambulance services, are suddenly considered to be illegal or dangerous for use in Staffordshire.

"No-one is criticising the sheer professionalism of paramedics in the Staffordshire Ambulance Service.

"It is the new management over whom a question mark now hangs."

Mr Fabricant says drugs an equipment withdrawn n Staffordshire are still in use in ambulances and by first responders elsewhere.

"Why has Staffordshire alone determined that the Medicines Act is being breached?" he asks.