East of England Ambulance Service - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is the authority responsible for providing National Health Service

National Health Service

The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

(NHS) ambulance

Ambulance

An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

services in the counties of Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...

, Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

and Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

, in the East of England

East of England

The East of England is one of the nine official regions of England. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999. It includes the ceremonial counties of Essex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region.Its...

region.
It is one of 12 Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services, and is part of the NHS, receiving direct government funding for its role. There is no charge to patients for use of the service, and under the Patient's Charter

Patient's Charter

The Patient's Charter is a United Kingdom government document, which sets out a number of rights for National Health Service patients. It was originally introduced in 1991, under the then Conservative government, and was revised in 1995 and 1997....

every person in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency.

As well as providing an emergency ambulance service, the Trust also provides out-of-hours primary care services, patient transport, commercial services and special operations such as air ambulance

Air ambulance

An air ambulance is an aircraft used for emergency medical assistance in situations where either a traditional ambulance cannot reach the scene easily or quickly enough, or the patient needs to be transported over a distance or terrain that makes air transportation the most practical transport....

s, emergency planning, and hazardous materials

Dangerous goods

Dangerous goods are solids, liquids, or gases that can harm people, other living organisms, property, or the environment. They are often subject to chemical regulations. "HazMat teams" are personnel specially trained to handle dangerous goods...

incident response.

The Trust controls the mobilisation of Immediate Care charities throughout its area. These include Magpas

Magpas

Magpas is an Emergency Medical Charity that provides pre-hospital critical care and retrieval in the East of England with its main area of operations being in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and the neighbouring parts of Norfolk, Suffolk and Bedfordshire...

, SARS

Suffolk Accident Rescue Service

The Suffolk Accident Rescue Service is a registered charity which assists the East of England Ambulance Service in providing medical care at the scene of emergencies in Suffolk and surrounding counties. The organisation relies on volunteer medical professionals and Allied Health Professionals to...

, NARS and East Anglian Air Ambulance

East Anglian Air Ambulance

The East Anglian Air Ambulance is an air ambulance which covers Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire. The service was launched in the summer of 2000 by jockey Frankie Dettori. The service now operates 365 days a year utilising two helicopters, covering over and a population of...

History

The trust was formed on 1 July 2006 following the three-way merger of the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Ambulance and Paramedic Service NHS Trust, the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, and the Essex Ambulance Service NHS Trust. The result was a service covering an area of over 7500 square miles (19,424.9 km²) with a population of 5.8 million people, and one which answers over 500,000 emergency calls

999 (emergency telephone number)

999 is an official emergency telephone number in a number of countries which allows the caller to contact emergency services for urgent assistance....

per year.

The East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust was formed in 1994 from the three-way merger of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk Ambulance Services.

In 2009, the Trust was censured by the Care Quality Commission

Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission is a non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom government established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. This includes services provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies and voluntary organisations -...

after inspection of an ambulance depot and seven of its 100 ambulance stations found patient-carrying vehicles were "dirty" and that staff were "unsure of basic measures for infection prevention and control". The service launched an "urgent and comprehensive review" of its ambulance cleaning programme and reiterated its stance on patient safety, adding that "ensuring consistent high standards of cleanliness is a challenge" with so many stations, covering six counties and an area of 7,500 square-miles.

Statistics and resources

In 2009/10, the Trust mobilised to 668,451 999 emergency calls, including 207,626 high-priority "category A" emergencies. It arrived at 75.67% of these category A calls within eight minutes, and 96.04% within 19 minutes.
The Trust has the following resources in operation:

273 emergency ambulances
237 non-emergency ambulances
215 marked rapid-response cars
25 major incident support vehicles; decontamination equipment, and mobile control rooms

110 ambulance stations and response posts
3 Health Emergency Operations Centres (control rooms) in Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

, Chelmsford
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England and the principal settlement of the borough of Chelmsford. It is located in the London commuter belt, approximately northeast of Charing Cross, London, and approximately the same distance from the once provincial Roman capital at Colchester...

and Norwich
Norwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

The Trust provides its own in-house driving school, which has trained over 220 drivers in emergency driving

Blues and twos

Blues and twos is a colloquial British term that refers to the emergency vehicle equipment of combined flashing lights as well as sirens that the emergency services in the UK and Ireland use when responding to an incident...

.

The Trust employs 3,994 people, including 2,516 involved in frontline accident and emergency

Emergency department

An emergency department , also known as accident & emergency , emergency room , emergency ward , or casualty department is a medical treatment facility specialising in acute care of patients who present without prior appointment, either by their own means or by ambulance...

operations.

External links

East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

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History

Statistics and resources

See also

External links