LUDLOW Town councillor Darren Childs is leading a plea for people in the town to sign a public statement demanding action to improve the NHS in the area.

Mr Childs became a campaigner after his baby daughter Myla has to wait almost an hour for an ambulance at the beginning of the year when she started to fit.

The ambulance service say it was 50 minutes and fortunately, although the little girl was taken to hospital for a check-up, she has since completely recovered.

In the statement there are a number of demands which include more recruitment of health workers into the NHS in Shropshire, an increase in the number of beds from the present 2.5 per thousand and more money for the NHS in the area.

The statement makes it clear that front line health workers and managers are not being blamed but are doing their best in the face of a lack of resources to deal with the demands being made on all aspects of the service.

“We’re asking local people and local organisations to sign this statement,” said Mr Childs.

“We’ll be writing to town and parish councils, GP Practices, faith groups, voluntary sector and community organisations, everyone we can think of. We need all of us united in trying to stop the harm and deaths that are now happening completely avoidably.

“We’ll be writing to all our MPs, of course. There’s an important message here though to every one of them. This can’t be about party politics. We need you to admit there’s a crisis going on here, to go back to the government, and to ask and ask again for the social care funding we need to save lives.”