JOHN DELLA BOSCA'S closest backer, the Health Services Union, has convinced him to reverse a decision made just two months ago so that responsibility for rescue services will be handed back to the NSW Ambulance Service.

Mr Della Bosca will ignore a recommendation from a Government review of ambulance performance and overturn the decision of his predecessor, Reba Meagher, who stripped the ambulance service of rescue operations.

In September the former health minister Ms Meagher said the handover was in line with recommendations made by Graeme Head in his review of the Ambulance Service of NSW, which found that rescue work made up just 11 per cent of the work done by ambulance rescue officers.

Mr Head, who has since quit the Government, said in his report that handing the rescue service units to the Fire Brigade would free 88 paramedics to concentrate on emergency patient care.

The move outraged the Health Services Union, one of Mr Della Bosca's main backers in the Labor Party, and a spokesman for the minister confirmed the decision had been reversed for 12 months to allow for another review.

"Ambulance rescue paramedics are highly skilled and the minister feels a more appropriate process should have been established that considered the options available to best utilise these skills," the spokesman said. "The State Rescue Board will be requested to re-accredit the ambulance rescue units for a 12-month period to allow for a review of rescue functions across the emergency services to be undertaken."

The state secretary of the Fire Brigade Employers Union, Simon Flynn, said the brigade was equipped and trained to handle rescue responsibilities.

"Every study and report done on this subject for 30 years has found that the fire brigade is best placed to perform rescue duties and that the savings in switching rescue to the firies are substantial - in fact tens of millions of dollars," Mr Flynn said.

"This union is hearing that the Rees Government is on the verge of flip-flopping and returning rescue duties to the ambos - if this were to happen it would have everything to do with John Della Bosca doing the HSU a favour and nothing to do with good governance or public policy.

"Firefighters are trained, equipped and resourced to rescue people, the safety of the public has not been compromised by our members performing these functions and any suggestion to the contrary is despicable and quite possibly actionable."