The region's ambulance service will not make it through the winter if it "continues postponing difficult decisions", bosses have said.

A public meeting called by Oswestry Town Council at the Wynnstay Hotel on Monday saw frustrated campaigners raise concerns over a lack of public engagement and consultation over the closure plans.

Murray Macgregor, a representative of West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS), told the meeting: “Our response times in areas like Oswestry and the rural parts of Shropshire are not good enough – I think it’s important to say that.

“We want to do something about that. We’re very clear that we want to do as well as we possibly can whether we’re in a rural area or urban area.

“We need to do more and that’s one of the reasons why we need to make a change.

“Doing nothing is not an option.”

In the current system, using community ambulance stations, all except 10 of 480 ambulances are based at 50 large hubs, meaning crews lose on average around three hours per shift travelling between hubs, cleaning and restocking ambulances.

Further delays are also caused at hubs due to longer waits during clinical handovers at hospitals in the region, he explained.

WMAS representatives explained that so far in September 2021, handovers at hospitals which should take place within 15 minutes, have taken one hour and 47 minutes on average.

They added that the 15-minute target is not being met by 90 per cent of ambulances, with the longest wait for a handover of a patient being nine hours and 45 minutes.

Mr Macgregor explained that delays mean ambulance staff will be late arriving back at their hubs, meaning they will be unable to attend other jobs.

He added that this results in a knock-on effect, meaning the ambulance crew at the hub has to wait for the ambulance to return to the hub and in the meantime are unable to attend callouts.

The reason for delays in patient handovers is due to the pressure hospitals are under, Mr Macgregor said.

“It’s not the fault of the crew’s, it’s the fault of the system,” he added.

“It is clearly not efficient use of our ambulance time – we want to make sure we use our ambulances as efficiently as possible.”

Also attending the meeting was WMAS representative Mark Doherty, who stated that there is a clinical need for more ambulances and paramedics, as opposed to buildings.

He said: “They don’t need a building I’m sorry. We can’t justify keeping a building open that’s consuming a lot of resource that we could get into the frontline.

“I didn’t come along tonight expecting to win an argument. I hope what we have done is explain perspective.

“The original plan wasn’t for it to happen so soon, but we’re not going to make it through winter if we continue postponing these decisions.

“We’ve got to deliver more ambulances and get response times back on target.”