Ambulance chiefs preparing for challenging few months as the winter pressures mount

As well as urging the public to think about the most suitable health service for their ailment, East Midlands Ambulance Service is taking steps to ensure it is ready for winter, including new ambulances, additional call handlers and welfare vehicles to support frontline crews.

The winter months are traditionally one of the busiest times of year for the NHS due to increases in illness and cold weather-related incidents, such as trips and falls.

For EMAS, it can also become more challenging to reach patients in need due to adverse weather and subsequent poor road conditions.

Greg Cox, EMAS Nottinghamshire divisional director, says there are two clear focuses in his county for the coming winter months – patients and staff.

“This winter it is more important than ever that we work with our NHS partners to ensure we are able to provide the best care possible to the patients who really need us,” he says, “as well as looking after our staff during this period of increased demand.

“This includes working with our senior EMAS clinicians and healthcare colleagues so only patients who genuinely need an ambulance receive one, and also working daily with our NHS system partners to reduce hospital handover delays.

“A lot of the hospitals have handover pressures, although ours are some of the best in the region for handovers from an ambulance perspective, which really helps us to get back out there and look after our patients.

“There’s been a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure what we have in place over winter is things to escalate problems, so the right people know early on and we can put actions in place that help handover patients.

“Nationally, there are expectations that this might be a difficult winter, for lots of reasons.

“It’s post Covid and we’ve all spent a lot of time over the last two years indoors and away from other people, so among certain patient groups, their immunity is probably not as high as it would have been as we normally go out and about and catch colds.

“We’re expecting people who have respiratory disorders, breathing problems, as part of their every day life, will need to take extra care but also might need further assistance.

“We’re expecting a difficult winter. As we all know in the NHS, it’s been a difficult couple of years, but I think the difference is that in previous years we would have had some respite from the demand throughout the summer months, but that has just continued this year which is what makes it different.”

EMAS says members of the public can help by practising self-care and utilising their local pharmacies, GP surgery, NHS 111 online, or urgent treatment centres when they have a medical issue, and only calling in genuinely life-threatening emergencies, so EMAS can be there for people when really needed.

Mr Cox says: “But we wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from ringing for an ambulance if that’s what they absolutely need, so if it is an emergency then please do ring us.”

Multiple steps have been taken across the organisation to prepare for winter, including 110 new, high-specification ambulances, to replace older vehicles being retired from service.

Throughout the year, EMAS has worked to recruit and train ambulance crews including paramedics, technicians and ambulance support crews to maximise the number of crews available to respond to patients in the community.

Recruitment of additional 999 call handlers has continued – EMAS’s two control rooms have the best response times in the country, with an average call pick-up rate of just seven seconds.

Additional specialist practitioners are being recruited to help triage patients in person and over the phone, helping people access the right care at the right time.

GPs and air ambulance doctors also continue to do control-room shifts to support crews needing advice about patients with complex medical issues.

Other projects include welfare vehicles for staff at Sutton’s King’s Mill Hospital and Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre to offer staff hot drinks and a safe place to have a break, assigning colleagues to emergency departments during periods of intense pressure, so crews can get back on the road more quickly, and ensuring staff finish long shifts on time and enjoy some respite over Christmas.

Mr Cox said: “Thank you to all our staff for their ongoing hard work. It’s remarkable what they do for our patients and I’m proud to be a small part of that.”