News from Brian Coleman: Coleman calls for £500m saving by merging London’s blue-light fire and ambulance services

London Assembly member, Brian Coleman said today that half a billion pounds could be saved by merging London’s fire and ambulance services.

Speaking as the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) prepared to examine proposals on the future of the capital’s ambulance service, Mr Coleman, who chairs LFEPA, said:

“I believe that up to £500million could be saved by merging London’s fire and ambulance services thus creating blue-light synergy.

“The ambulance service is based at 70 dedicated stations across London. This is completely unnecessary and a total waste of money because they could be housed in under the same roof as the fire service. Merging most of them would end duplication and create synergies thus raising hundreds of millions of pounds.”

Mr Coleman also drew attention to the collapse in the ambulance service during public sector strikes on November 30.

“When the fire service last striked in 2010 management ensured that London was kept safe by organising cover. However, during the public sector strikes on November 30 last year the ambulance service collapsed under weight of calls and poor planning and was forced to rely on the police to keep it going. This was both a failure of management and planning in an organisation completely lacking any public accountability. 

“Bringing the blue light functions of the ambulance service under LFEPA control would restore democratic accountability as it used to be when it was under the control of the London County Council.”

He added:

“Fire and ambulance services work as one in France and the United States, and it must happen here. An independent ambulance service makes no sense no matter how you slice it and reforming it must surely be a matter of “when” not “if”.

ENDS