Ambulance chiefs have been considering closing smaller stations across Essex.

Vehicles and paramedics will be attached to health centres, community hospitals or by the roadside if the board of Essex Ambulance Service Trust decided to agree to the proposal on Friday.

The changes will result in more staff and extra vehicles, says the Trust, and allow it to provide better cover.

The Trust is aiming to achieve the Government target of reaching 75 per cent of life-threatening calls within eight minutes by next March.

Of the 31 Essex stations, larger ones, like Chelmsford and Colchester, will remain.

Trust chief executive Gron Roberts said: "It is not ambulance stations that answer calls but ambulances."

He said most ambulance stations were empty most of the time.

Twenty-five areas had been pinpointed as "reporting stations" at strategic locations.

Mr Roberts said: "There are going to be locations where ambulances are going to be beside the road. But if they are going to be there for any length of time we will be looking for facilities for them."

Mr Roberts stressed that staff would still be working in their own area, and it was just a different way of providing the service.

Frank Ward, of the NHS union Unison, said staff had only heard rumours so far. He said experience elsewhere in Britain showed that such changes only knocked a few seconds from response times.

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