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Primary Care Trusts and Ambulance Trusts

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely important point. He can see from the proposals that we have recognised the strong concerns expressed by him and some of my hon. Friends. The public in Staffordshire clearly feel a strong attachment to their ambulance service, and rightly so. We have stated clearly that merger is expected within a period of time. I am not going to lay a time frame on that today, but he makes the legitimate point that we would not want Staffordshire ambulance service’s standards to be eroded in any way.