Campaigners have called for more funds after it was revealed that four out of ten ambulances should be taken off the roads - reports the Blackpool Citizen.
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."
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