CAMPAIGNERS have called for more funds after it was revealed that four out of 10 ambulances should be taken off the roads.

Cash-strapped North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) NHS Trust bosses can afford to replace only a fraction of the accident and emergency ambulances and rapid response vehicles which have reached the end of their shelf life in Lancashire.

Now officials from the NWAS public and patient information forum - the patients' watchdog - said the situation should not be allowed to continue.

Forum spokesman Salle Dare said: "Our concern, representing patients, will be to put pressure on the primary care trusts and Government to provide sufficient money to help overcome this situation."

The forum appreciated the pressures which the ambulance trust worked under, and the competing demands made upon the service.

But she added: "It is the Cinderella of the emergency services - when everyone thinks of the ambulance trust they then only think of accident and emergency but there are many different aspects to it.

"The new plans for the ambulance service, which serves a much greater role, attending to people at home and carrying out more diagnostic work. means that we need to have a modern service to meet these demands."

While the Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Merseyside areas will receive 35 new ambulances this financial year, Lancashire will receive none - because it had the more up-to-date fleet before the various regional ambulance trusts merged a year ago.

Salle added: "Because Lancashire has had the investment in ambulances previously, and Greater Manchester and Mersey region have not, so there is a little bit of a balancing exercise going on.

"But I think that over time this will even itself out and all ambulances will be at the same level across the north west."