AMBULANCE bosses have admitted planning to use Red Cross and St John Ambulance volunteers to help with 999 calls in the wake of the terrorist attacks in America.

The North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), which covers from Berwick, in Northumberland, to North Yorkshire, has consulted the voluntary organisations amid fears of increased anthrax attacks in the North.

The move follows two recent hoax anthrax scares at Selby, in North Yorkshire, and Chester-le-Street, near Durham.

The NEAS has carried out a feasibility study to look at using volunteers to help with emergency calls on Friday and Saturday nights, from 8pm to 2am.

In a memo, seen by The Northern Echo, Red Cross ambulance personnel were consulted on October 18 with a view to starting the partnership in December.

But while ambulance bosses have since ruled out the move, due to practicalities such as radio control of their vehicles, they have admitted they are not adverse to drawing on the charity workers in the future.

Paul Liversidg, director of accident and emergency at the NEAS said: "With the terrorist attacks we've been trying to work together to increase our resources at particular times.

"It might raise its head in the future because there is a process we're going through in respect of having a new radio infrastructure, but that's a number of years off. We have not gone further than the planning stage.

But ambulance workers reacted angrily to the idea.

One paramedic said: "This is an absolute disgrace. These people are not used to being confronted with the violence that we can take place on a Friday or Saturday night."