The Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, has approved plans for South Western Ambulance Service Foundation Trust (SWASFT) and Great Western Ambulance Service (GWAS) to join forces.
The ministerial signature on the formal GWAS Dissolution Order earlier this week paves the way for the creation of a single ambulance service for the South West. From Friday, February 1 SWASFT will take on the services currently provided GWAS – creating an organisation serving a resident population of over 5.3 million people and covering almost 10,000 square miles.
In 2011-2012 the two organisations responded to almost 700,000 emergency calls to the 999 service.
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