Emergency services will have to wait several more months to receive medals to mark the Queen's Jubilee -- and emergency call operators will be left out entirely.

Police, firefighters and ambulance service personnel who have given five or more years service are eligible for a medal.

However, control room operators, many of whom deal with stressful situations and give life-saving advice over the phone, have been excluded.

Leading firefighter Dean Mills, regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, said: "Control operators feel that they are being undervalued and that their work isn't being recognised.

"They carry out a vital function taking calls from the public who may be in quite a degree of distress until the firefighters arrive. That has caused a lot of bad feeling." A spokesman for the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions (DTLR), said: "Ministers decided that the medal should be awarded to members of the emergency services who are required to put their lives at risk.

"Fire service control room staff, however vital and stressful their jobs, are not required to put their lives at risk and consequently are not eligible for the medal. The same eligibility criteria are being applied to the staff of all emergency services."

A Thames Valley Police spokesman said officers were likely to get their medals in the next four months, after the Metropolitan Police. Medals were expected to be given out alphabetically -- meaning some officers would get them earlier than others. The Home Office said officers could expect to be notified by the end of September. Sgt Bill Butcher, sector sergeant for Woodstock, had hoped to wear his medal when he led a Jubilee parade on Sunday, June 2.

"I was disappointed I didn't get it in time to have worn it for the Jubilee," he said.

A DTLR spokesman said medals for the fire service were expected at the end of 2002. She said: "There has not been a delay. The decision to award the emergency services came after the decision to award the armed services."

A Department of Health spokesman said medals for paramedics were expected "later this summer".

The Government agreed last December to mint medals for the police after emergency services campaigned for recognition.