AN investment in a specialist rescue team will improve ambulance services to people living in Ludlow and south Shropshire and across Tenbury and the Teme Valley.

West Midlands Ambulance Service is investing more than £400,000 to strengthen its Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) beyond the standard national requirements.

The Trust has to have 42 HART paramedics, which breaks down into seven teams of six. However, in order to add extra resilience, WMAS has employed an extra seven HART paramedics to ensure an operational capability of seven teams of seven.

HART provides paramedic care to patients within a hazardous environment that would otherwise be beyond the reach of NHS care. This can include working at height, collapsed structures or within contaminated environments. HART staff can also operate within the Warm Zone of a firearms incidents.

“The significance of the Trust’s decision to extend our HART teams cannot be underestimated,” said James Price of the West Midlands Ambulance Service.

“Not only does it give us increased resilience in terms of a job HART are required to attend, it also further develops the skillset of an additional seven members of staff into the diverse operating environment of Hazardous Area Response Teams.

“By increasing the number of HART paramedics within the West Midlands, we are further enhancing the service patients receive throughout the region when calling 999 in their hour of need.”