Responding to patients with complex moving needs
Members of our Evacuation Team have been trained to work on two specially adapted vehicles when responding to bariatric patients and patients who have fallen in hard-to-reach areas around the home, as well as patients who are uninjured but require assistance from the floor.
This may be an elderly patient who has fallen down the side of the bed, or someone who has fallen in a confined space, such as a bathroom.
The service was first introduced in February 2020, and we were the first ambulance service in the country to introduce a specialist team specifically to deal with these types of incidents.
A better patient experience
Although our emergency ambulances and patient transport vehicles are equipped and capable of extracting and carrying patients, in more challenging situations it can take us longer to deal with or we may need assistance from the fire and rescue service. This delays treatment for the patient and increases the length of time our paramedics are on the scene.
Having a specialist Evacuation Team allows us to provide a better patient experience by speeding up treatment, as well as helping our ambulance crews to get back out responding to other patients in need of urgent medical assistance.