Atrocious ambulance response times will get even worse if cuts take place at Honley, staff have claimed.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) is proposing to slash the number of paramedics, ambulance technicians and emergency care assistants that work out of the Holme Valley station.

While it is increasing numbers in Dewsbury, Bradford and Leeds, it wants to remove eight medics from the village base at Moorbottom.

The changes would see a reduction in available ambulances from three to two, with reduced levels of service on the current operation.

A YAS source has told the Examiner that staff fear the change will see already poor emergency response times to the Holme, Colne and Dearne valleys, deteriorate further.

The source revealed ambulances were frequently missing the eight minute target for the most serious 999 calls by over an hour.

The latest figures show over the spring and summer of this year, ambulances only made it to the HD8 postcode within NHS “Red” targets on one out of five occasions.

The Red target asks crews to get to patients within eight minutes three-quarters of the time.

In Huddersfield the target is only achieved in two postcodes – HD1 and HD3.

The source said: “We’re not just missing the target by a few minutes here or there, we’re missing them spectacularly.

“It’s often half-an-hour, an hour or an-hour-and-a-half late. We used to be much better and we made it to about 60% of calls in time.

Honley Ambulance Station, Moorbottom, Honley.

“Now, in my opinion, they’re just abandoning the rural areas.”

YAS says it is recruiting 252 new medics and buying 110 new ambulances but has admitted its policy is to focus them on major urban areas such as Leeds and Bradford.

Paul Mudd, YAS’s locality director for West Yorkshire, said the boost would prevent the “vacuum effect” of Honley and Huddersfield crews being called out of their area.

But an ambulance worker source has told the Examiner that Honley’s crews would not be protected from going far afield.

“The days of us only going to HRI are long gone,” said the source.

“We go to Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Halifax every day. And once we’re there they don’t let us go back.

Shutting HRI’s A&E will be a disaster for us as we will be out of area all the time.

“If these changes go through, the chances of somebody in the valleys getting an ambulance quickly are going to reduce.

“We’re not going to be serving our own community.

“We will continue to be pulled out of area no matter how many staff Bradford or Leeds has.

“It’s great that they are bringing in extra resources for the cities but why can’t they leave us alone? Why are we the only station getting cut?”

Paul Mudd, Locality Director for Emergency Operations (West Yorkshire) at Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said:

“We are always looking to improve the services we provide to patients and are constantly reviewing our resources to ensure that our staff and vehicles are in the right place at the right time to respond to patients needing our assistance.

“The proposed cover in Honley is currently under consultation and is based on analysis of expected demand. The proposal is to have two ambulances in the day and one ambulance at night. In addition, there would be two rapid response vehicles between 11am and 11pm from Monday to Friday and two rapid response vehicles from 11am through to 4am on Saturday and Sunday. It’s important to remember that as a regional service we have the flexibility to move our ambulances to wherever they are needed to ensure there is adequate cover.

“The current work taking place on reviewing rotas across the region is on-going and no decisions have been made at this stage.

“We remain committed to providing a safe, high quality service for the people of Yorkshire.”