WILTSHIRE'S ailing ambulance service could be merged with Gloucestershire and Avon to create one super trust in a bid to buck up the service and improve response times.

A report by management consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, commissioned by the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority, examined three options for the future of the service and recommended the amalgamation.

At a meeting of the Ambulance Review Steering Group on Monday night, members agreed to take the recommendation as their preferred option.

SHA chief executive Trevor Jones said:

"Improving patient safety and operational performance and efficiency has been at the heart of our review.

"Ambulance services are changing, driven by an exciting new Government agenda, and now there is a far greater emphasis on the way patients are treated rather than just the speed of response. We will be consulting with NHS staff and our key partners on the preferred option of a single new ambulance trust.

"A detailed, open communications exercise with patients, the public, staff and key stakeholders is now being planned and a public document will be published by the end of June."

The consultants considered three options for the future of the three ambulance services. The first was to leave them as they are now, the second was to have three services with one management team, and the third and preferred option was to merge the trusts.

The SHA hopes to make initial savings of £1 million if the services are merged, money it says would be ploughed back into providing frontline emergency services.

Trust spokeswoman Kate Knight said it was too early to say where the headquarters might be based, but she said it was likely management jobs would be lost.

"Currently none of the three trusts meets Government targets, which are getting tougher and tougher."

The Association of Professional Ambulance Personnel, the union representing ambulance staff, said they were angry the outcome of the report had not been communicated to staff first.

A spokesman Jonathon Fox said: "When people are proposing radical changes to your working environment, people need to be brought on side. Staff are the people who will be most affected."

There are concerns about the Chippenham training college, and how the control rooms would be affected.

The Wiltshire service is failing to meet targets for response times.

A year ago only 50 per cent of calls were meeting the eight-minute target. This improved to 73 per cent last month.