> in London, if fire stations were each given an ambulance or hybrid fire-medical vehicle, it could be put to use to relieve the NHS

Alas, will never happen because the point of deliberately running down the ambulance service (and the rest of the NHS) is to get the voting public to a breaking point where they say "right, fine, privatise the NHS, it's the only way to fix it" and the Tory chums can swoop in.

Also, the problems with the ambulance service is not the lack of ambos - they're cheap enough to buy. It's with the lack of qualified, trained, registered paramedics and ambo staff to operate the ambulances. It's also the fact that social care has collapsed which means hospitals can't safely discharge patients who have no medical need to be in hospital, and that means EDs can't admit patients into hospital, and that means ambos can't unload patients into the ED.