Significant investment has been put into additional frontline crews, vehicles and equipment to help North East Ambulance Service improve its services for patients.
Last year, the service secured additional investment from commissioners to further improve clinical care for patients and make the organisation a great place to work and grow.
Much of that money has gone into growing the workforce, with nearly 500 new colleagues, including paramedics, clinical care assistants, ambulance care assistants, health advisors, senior clinical advisors and advanced practitioners recruited over the last year.
The service has also invested in replacement or additional equipment and vehicles across all frontline services as well as training.
This investment has included:
- 167 replacement defibrillators, together with improved supporting equipment and software
- A refurbishment programme to replace livery, seats, side steps, tail lifts and floors on 37 emergency ambulances
- 50 additional iPads as part of a trial of personal issue iPads for frontline colleagues
- Four additional driver training vehicles
- Three new specialist operations vehicles to help us ensure a timely response to a major or complex incident
- 34 brand new and five second-hand emergency ambulances to replace the current fleet
- 18 replacement critical care trolleys
- 25 replacement officer cars
- Six community paramedic vehicles
- A third set of equipment for the specialist evacuation team, allowing for a more efficient transfer between vehicles if one of the two vehicles goes into workshops for servicing or repair
- 47 new wheelchairs and specialist equipment for our patient transport service
Tarryn Lake, Director of Finance and Digital at NEAS, said: “Our ambition is to deliver outstanding performance and safe, compassionate and inclusive care. We can’t do that unless we have the right people in place, and they have the right vehicles and equipment to do their job.
“As well as allowing us to grow our workforce, the additional investment we were able to secure from our commissioners last year has meant we could invest in a wide vehicle and equipment replacement project which spans across all frontline services, and to also invest in additional vehicles to help us improve our service to our patients.
“We have further investment plans over the coming year, which will see us look to transform our Emergency Operations Centre and patient transport service so we can ensure we’re the best system partner we can be and that, ultimately, that the North East public receives the best care possible.”