More than 4,500 people have signed petitions opposing health chiefs’ plans to remove a rapid response vehicle from Monmouth Ambulance Station.

The proposed service axing, part of a national roster review aimed at “better matching capacity to demand”, will result in two rapid response vehicles being removed from Chepstow and Monmouth ambulance stations.

More than 3,000 people have signed a paper petition opposing plans for the removal from Monmouth, while about 1,500 people have signed a separate online petition.

Campaigners will present the paper petition to the Senedd on Thursday, May 12, before holding a meeting with Jason Killens, chief executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service and other health board representatives.

Lorraine Allman, one of the organisers of the petition, said data campaigners have gathered support for keeping the rapid response vehicle in Monmouth from Freedom of Information requests.

“If we do not get a reprieve on this decision I will be truly shocked,” she said. “All of the data tells us this is completely the wrong decision.

“They are making the decision in the context of an all-Wales review and they are not looking at things on a local level which is very dangerous.”

Campaigners say the plans would leave just one ambulance serving the area, and no rapid response vehicles, resulting in an increase in response times.

Monmouthshire Council leader and Mitchel Troy resident, Richard John, has recently held talks with Mr Killens following concerns raised about the plans.

He said: “While the meeting was constructive, I unfortunately didn’t get the reassurances I was seeking specifically about ambulance provision at Monmouth and Chepstow stations.

“Their justification for removing the rapid response vehicles from our stations is that there is a relatively low level of immediately life-threatening red calls, and they consider money would be better spent on new emergency ambulances, which can, unlike the rapid response vehicle convey patients to hospital.

“Across Gwent they have plans to recruit 53 additional ambulance staff and increase the number of vehicles, but crucially there is no commitment for these ambulances to be based in Monmouthshire.

“They will be based outside our county in the larger centres of population and available to travel into Monmouthshire when required.

“I don’t think this is good enough given the significant travel times in a rural area.

‘‘In recent years many hospital services including A&E have been taken away from Nevill Hall and transferred to the Grange, which was condemned earlier this month for unsafe levels of care. This week the Welsh government has said it’ll take at least three years before waiting times for treatment even begin to fall below a year.

“Not a day goes by without hearing another dreadful experience that patients have endured in our health service and it’s not good enough.

“Staff do their utmost to provide the highest level of care, but the system is just broken and I don’t have confidence in the oversight of Labour Ministers who’ve been running the NHS for almost 25 years.

“It’s extraordinary that the entire NHS – the health boards, the ambulance service - all £9billion of it, is accountable to just one person, the health minister in the Welsh government.

“After all the services we’ve lost in Monmouthshire over the last few years, cutting back our ambulance provision by removing the rapid response vehicles at Monmouth and Chepstow is the final straw. This decision, backed by the Welsh government, is going to put lives at risk.

“I want health service bosses to have to account to Monmouthshire councillors for the services they provide to our residents because we’re in closer contact with the public and better understand the challenges of rurality than a Minister in Cardiff.

“There would be no need to set up any additional tiers of bureaucracy, but I believe there must be a role for local government, perhaps regionally or on a health board footprint, in holding NHS bosses to account for the decisions they make in their areas.

“When we get proposals such as removing the rapid response vehicles, surely it’s right that bosses should have to account to locally elected politicians, not simply a single individual in Cardiff.”

Mr Killens has said he was happy to meet with Mr John to explain the issues in more detail.

“The Wales-wide roster review is a complex piece of work, and while we accept there is some nervousness among communities about what this means for provision in their area, the goal ultimately is to ensure that our finite resources are aligned to demand,” he said.

“This is not about reducing or downgrading services; it’s about working smarter with the resources we have to deliver a bespoke service to communities, based on the nature and number of calls the data tells us we historically receive in that community, as well as what we predict that demand will look like in the future.”

Richard John is a candidate for Mitchel Troy and Trellech United ward in the Monmouthshire county council elections on May 5. The full list of candidates is: Joe Atkinson – Green Party, Martin Oliver Blakebrough – Liberal Democrats, Alison Denton – Labour, Richard Oliver John – Conservative, Laura McConnel – Labour, Jayne Elizabeth McKenna – Conservative.