Who we are and what we do
In this section you'll find information on our Board,our
organisational structure, locations and contacts and information
about our legal obligations.
About NEAS
We have a predicted annual turnover of £106million for 2010/11.
We employ more than 2,000 staff and receive, prioritise and respond
to over 360,000 emergency and urgent incidents per annum.
Of these incidents over 110,000 are immediately life threatening
and require an 8 minute response time. Alongside this there are 10
other clinical quality indicators which are aimed at judging care
on its quality, not just how quickly an ambulance arrives. Click here
to read more about our quality indicators.
The A&E service also provides
a 120 to 240 minute transport service for General Practitioners for
up to 65,000 patients per annum, transporting those who require
direct admission to hospital following a GP assessment.
In addition, up to 1,500 patients per annum require a high
dependency transfer.
Our Patient
Transport Service facilitates vital access for many patients
requiring health care or treatment services at outpatient
appointments, planning for over one million patient transport
service journeys per annum.
Our emergency planning
department provides medical support and training so that the
service is prepared in the event of a major incident. The Trust
also works very closely with St
Johns Ambulance Service and the British Red Cross.
A&E and PTS are both supported by our Contact Centres based
in Bernicia House, Newburn Riverside and Russell House, Hebburn,
which are now managing in excess of 450,000 calls per annum.
NEAS covers an area of 3,200 square miles serving a
population of 2.66 million people.
NEAS also runs a 111 non emergency number in County Durham and
Darlington for people who need healthcare but are unsure if they
need an ambulance. A trained call taker will assess their needs and
either refer them to a local point of care for example their GP or
walk in centre, or arrange an emergency ambulance if one is
needed.
Our Partners
Our partners include two Mental Health Trusts, two Foundation
Trusts; Northumberland
Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS
Foundation Trust as well as 12 local unitary authorities, and
eight acute hospital trusts which can be found to the right.
How we are Monitored
Ambulance performance is monitored by the Primary Care Trust
Boards and overseen by NHS North East - the
strategic health authority for the region. This body is the
representation of the Department of
Health in the area.
A&E ambulance services are paid for by NHS Primary Care
Trusts, of which there are 12 in the North East, you can find their
contact details to the right.
In 2013 the Primary Care Organisations will be replaced by
Clinical Commissioning Groups, of which there are 3 in the North
East Region:
Newcastle Bridges Clinical Commissioning
Group
Geographical area: Newcastle-upon-Tyne
Number of practices: 18
Population size: 161,110
Langbaurgh
Geographical area: Redcar and Cleveland
Number of practices: 16
Population size: 110,326
County Durham and Darlington
Geographical area: County Durham and Darlington
Number of practices: 90
Population size: 617,885
These Clinical Commissioning Groups will be free to
merge, expand or change location. Not all practices in a group
have to be physically located in the same area.
Each Clinical Commissioning Group will have an
'accountable officer' to take financial control of budgets from its
PCT. A new NHS Commissioning Board will calculate practice-level
budgets and allocate them directly to the groups. These groups
will then be responsible for commissioning NEAS.
There are a number of sparsely populated areas and isolated
residents in the North East, particularly in the rural parts of
Northumberland and Durham. The North East has a high level of
deprivation and experiences some of the highest levels of disease
prevalence in the country. Poor health compounded by the rural
nature of our region creates pressure for NEAS to achieve
performance targets. While NEAS meets response targets on a
regional basis it is more difficult to achieve them at a divisional
level.
Like every other heath service provider, NEAS is regulated by
the independent watchdog the Care
Quality Commission. The Commission rates all services on the
basis of quality of services to patients and use of resources in
which NEAS are consistently rated excellent and good respectively
making us one of the highest scoring ambulance trusts in the
country.
This score is the direct result of our hard working, skilled and
dedicated staff. In addition, an increased investment in ambulance
services in the last decade has led to improved ambulance
performance to emergency responses. NEAS is now reaching more
patients with life threatening conditions faster than ever
before.
Ambulances and rapid response vehicles are equipped with
technology such as heart monitors and telemetry, which let
ambulance crews send information about a patient's condition
directly to receiving hospitals. Paramedics now provide an
expanding range of care outside of hospital and have become mobile,
pre-hospital clinical care for all emergency patients.
Board Register of
Interests
The NEAS Board can confirm that it maintains a register of
interest and entries have been made in respect of the following
members:
- Alison
Fellows is an employee of Newcastle City Council and her
husband, Tim, is a partner in Dickinson Dees Law Firm.
- Peter Wood
is Chairman and Trustee of Charlotte Straker Project (Care Home)
which is a charitable company. He is a Director and Trustee of St
Oswald's Hospice
- Helen
Tucker has recently agreed to undertake voluntary work with
Tees Esk & Wear Valley Mental Health Trust as an associate
hospital manager; reviewing patients who have been sectioned under
the Mental Health Act
- Jeff
Fitzpatrick is a Director of three limited companies: Ecopanel
Systems, The Executive Director and World-Class Investors and is a
Trustee of Darlington & District Youth and Community
Association
- Kyee Han is a
Trustee of the Great North Air Ambulance Service
- Ann Fox is a
Company Director with the Communication Equation Ltd (providing
comms training to non-health and social care related organizations)
and Trustee of 'My New Hair Charity'
- Wendy
Lawson is a Director and sole shareholder of Consultants in
Contact Ltd which offers Contact Centre and management services to
Contact Centres and has declared the interests of her sister in
relation to a private partnership offering mediation and education
services, a National Charity promoting safe-professional
boundaries, her work as a caseworker with the Parliamentary &
Health Services Ombudsman and also with the Cleveland Police
authority's Standard Committee as an independent member.,
NEAS is satisfied that all of our Directors are
appropriately qualified to contribute to setting strategy,
monitoring and managing performance, and ensuring management
capacity and capability.
NEAS's selection process and training programmes ensure
that Non-Executive Directors have appropriate experience and skills
and that the management team has the capability and experience to
deliver its objectives. It complies with relevant legislation and
is satisfied that, to the best of its knowledge, using its own
processes, it has and will maintain effective arrangements for the
purpose of monitoring and continually improving the quality of
healthcare provided to its patients.
The board meets at least 6 times in public each year - details
of the meetings for this financial year can be found below.
2011/2012 Board Meeting Dates
