Ambulance super trust is approved (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Ambulance super trust is approved

A RADICAL change to ambulance services in Wiltshire has been agreed by health chiefs. The decision to recommend a merger of Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire into a single ambulance trust was made at a meeting of the regional Strategic Health Authority board in Chippenham last Thursday.

If approved by the Department of Health, the new trust would be in place in April 2006.

Following the meeting, Strategic Health Authority chief executive Trevor Jones said the new system would enable more money to be ploughed into helping ambulance staff.

"The ambulance service is changing dramatically and we need to be spending less on bureaucracy and more on frontline staff," he said.

Health bosses have said they expect up to £1.6 million will be saved each year, due to a reduction in bureaucracy.

They said response times and efficiency will be improved by freeing up funds to put into a new mobile healthcare system. This involves taking healthcare out to the patients, rather than just responding to trauma.

Examples of such projects include Wiltshire Ambulance Service's new team of Emergency Care Practitioners, trained to treat and prescribe drugs on the scene, meaning people who don't have to go to hospital can be treated at home.

This, according to the board, would improve patient care and free up more staff to respond to emergencies.

Chief executive of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Ambulance Trusts Philip Selwood said: "By treating more people at the scene or referring them to a GP or minor injuries unit, ambulance services will be able to concentrate on improving their responsiveness to more serious incidents."

Mr Jones added that a firm local structure would still be retained.

He said: "I would want to retain a very strong divisional structure, so we still keep a very local focus."

The amalgamation of the services was initially recommended in a report by management consultancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers earlier this year.

The Strategic Health Authority started to consult with staff, patients and the public on July 7.

Members said they were delighted with the response, particularly among staff .

Approval for the merger would seem to be a certainty after the government drew up a plan in June to slash the number of ambulance trusts in half, while retaining the same number of vehicles and staff.

Non-executive director Gordon Shurmer did raise a concern that by combining three under-performing trusts, all it would serve to do is create one big problematic organisation.

Although Mr Jones admitted that all three had been struggling, he pointed to improvements in Wiltshire and Avon, but he said with their small size it would always be difficult to reach their targets.

A year ago, only 50 per cent of calls were meeting the response target of eight minutes in Wiltshire, although this figure has improved significantly since then.