THE WARDEN of an old people's home told the head of Hampshire Ambulance Service she was unhappy at the response time of ambulances to emergencies.

Barbara Gatland won a review of the number of safety net first-aiders near her Gosport sheltered home after telling a public meeting she wanted improvements.

Mrs Gatland was speaking last night at the first public consultation meeting on the proposed merger of Hampshire and Surrey Ambulance Trusts.

Hampshire's Chief Ambulance Officer Richard Mawson the merger would be good for patients by improving response times to emergencies and also achieve economies by being a larger organisation.

However, Mrs Gatland, who looks after residents aged from 64 to 94, said her home was unlikely to benefit unless Royal Hospital Haslar was fully re-opened as an accident and emergency unit.

The emergency unit closure has been highly controversial because it increases the time ambulances take to travel from Fareham or Portsmouth to take patients to the nearest trauma unit at Queen Alexandra Hospital, Cosham, about 12 miles away, via the notoriously slow A32 Fareham to Gosport road.

Mrs Gatland said: "I am not convinced a merger would be good for my patients. They can't understand why ambulances have to come all the way from Fareham or Portsmouth and battle the congested A32 when they could be taken to Haslar.

"If the ambulance service wants to improve things then it should be pressing for Haslar to open properly and for always.''

In one case, she told the meeting at Cosham, an ambulance took 32 minutes to arrive, instead of the stated target of 19 minutes maximum for "serious cases'' and in another case the ambulance took 40 minutes when it was stuck in rush-hour traffic.

She said after the meeting: "I am not impressed by the big words about all the money available for making a new bigger ambulance service if it makes no difference to how quickly ambulances arrive.

"I am pleased the ambulance people are serious about increasing the number of first aid people in the area who can be on the scene quicker than an ambulance.''

Mr Mawson said the favoured option of merging the two ambulance trusts would improve staff training, achieve economies of scale in buying fuel, vehicles, uniforms and communication equipment. Patients would benefit from continuing improvements in response times, reduce variations in service over the country and patients would be given more options, other than being taken to emergency departments.

The cost of re-organisation was about £900,000 over five years.