A year after it removed an emergency ambulance from Devizes, the Great Western Ambulance Service is to base an ambulance car in the town.

Devizes has one of the lowest rates in the area for meeting national response targets and Steve West, director of operations at GWAS, said the additional car would improve the service to the public.

The car would be manned by a sole paramedic who can treat patients at the scene of an incident. The car cannot transport patients to hospital.

The new car would be in addition to a road ambulance, manned by two crew, based in Devizes, which operates 24 hours a day.

In June last year GWAS removed an ambulance from Devizes, which operated during the day.

In an incident last month it took an ambulance car 24 minutes to arrive to attend to a woman who collapsed in the Market Place, Devizes. A road ambulance from Malmesbury arrived a few minutes later.

GWAS is currently interviewing for five paramedics to work in the ambulance car based in Devizes.

The car will operate around the clock, seven days a week, and should be operational in four to six weeks.

The cost of the car, staff and equipment is £280,000 a year and the funding has come from Wiltshire Primary Care Trust.

GWAS has been using a private company to supply an ambulance car in Devizes over the last two to three weeks, although not always around the clock.

Asked if the introduction of the new ambulance car in Devizes was an admission that GWAS should not have removed an ambulance from Devizes last year Mr West said: "No, not at all.

"The ambulance (that was removed) would not have been in the area constantly as it transported patients to hospital.

"We are putting an ambulance car into Devizes because it's an area that we have identified where this resource will have a very positive impact on patient care to warrant having a dedicated vehicle in the area.

"It will enable us to keep a clinical response to patients.

"Historically in Devizes our response to Category A calls (life threatening calls) was 65 per cent within eight minutes. In July, since using agency provision, the response is up to 67.5 per cent. Our aim is to get to 75 per cent (the national target)."

Mr West said the ambulance car would be used to respond to all categories of calls received, not just Category A.

An ambulance worker told the Gazette: "The management have realised that they were not meeting a lot of the response times in Devizes and they are trying to backtrack."