ALDERMASTON nuclear weapons plant staff have suffered strokes, a heart attack and a variety of accidents that required civilian ambulances to attend.

Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that between July 2007 and January 2012 ambulances were called out to people who had suffered falls, strokes and several trauma injuries.

But in total, crews from South Central Ambulance Service were only called out 24 times to the AWE plant at Aldermaston.

There was just one callout in 2008, for an incident listed in the log as sick/unknown/other, compared with 11 callouts in 2011 for a variety of medical problems.

The service was called out to the site four times to attend to people who had suffered trauma, five times for traffic incidents, five times for those who were sick or had unknown complaints and three times for people suffering falls.

Two people had strokes on the site, one person fell unconscious, there was one case of heart problems, and there was one cardiac arrest.

Also listed in the incident log was an ambulance call for a diabetic patient and another for an unknown problem in 2011.

The calls were made from across the AWE site, with some incidents happening at the sports ground and some at the recreational society, Paices Hill, within the perimeter fence.

The Atomic Weapons Establishment site, where UK nuclear missiles are assembled, covers 880 acres and the company employs 4,500 staff across Aldermaston and Burghfield.

In March 2011, an internal ambulance service for staff working out-of-hours at the Aldermaston site was scrapped, in a move expected to generate savings of £828,000 over a five-year period.

Responding to the figures, spokeswoman Rachel Whybrow said they should be seen in context as AWE had upwards of 7,000 people present during an average working day.

She said: “AWE operates its own ambulance service during working hours on the Aldermaston and Burghfield sites, providing a ‘First Person on Scene’ response capability to its workforce and keeping calls on South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) to a minimum.

“Attendance by SCAS on or around AWE Aldermaston over the last five years has been low, at around five calls per year on average.

“This equates to less than one call every two months.

“We also have mutual assistance arrangements in place with the South Central Ambulance Service for support upon request.

“Likewise, AWE ambulances have also provided initial response to incidents outside the AWE sites on behalf of SCAS until their attendance.”