Ambulance service 002

Motor cyclist crashes and is found by a member of the public who rings Blackburn Ambulance service. rnFrom the personal slide photograph collection of Dr L. P. Grime, Blackburn’s former Medical Officer of Health. The collection shows how the health service was evolving in Blackburn during the 1960s. rnFollowing the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, ownership and control of hospitals previously in Local Authority hands passed to the NHS. Local Authorities such as Blackburn however continued to operate an ambulance service. Blackburn Corporation Ambulance Service had depots on Addison Street and Victoria Street, later merged into a single depot on George Street West. The Station Officers resided variously on Exeter Street, Marlton Road and Scotland Bank Terrace. An article in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph in February 1973 described Blackburn Ambulance service as the first in the world to adopt a revolutionary ‘space-age’ communication system. By 1977 the Blackburn Ambulance Service was no longer listed as a separate entry under Blackburn Borough Council, possibly as a result of Local Government re-organisation in 1974. dw