Chief Executive marks first anniversary at NEAS
Chief Executive Yvonne Ormston has marked her first anniversary at the helm of North East Ambulance Service by unveiling the future direction for the organisation.
She has launched a renewed purpose, vision and strategy for the service at its recent annual general meeting, held at Teesside University where more than 120 students have enrolled this year to study to become paramedics.
Yvonne said: “When I joined NEAS last year, it was against a background of deteriorating performance and a Care Quality Commission visit which had resulted in a number of concerns. Morale was low and our regulator had demanded a full review of our governance arrangements.
“Despite this, our patient care was very good, which for me was a really important indicator that we had great staff with a strong caring attitude. Much of our emphasis has been on tackling some of the challenges before us, in particular recruiting more paramedics into the organisation so we hope to reach our full staffing levels by September 2016.
“Whilst a lot is happening and is planned, it will take a while to positively impact on the frontline. We also have some major challenges ahead, particularly financial challenges, but I do believe we can turn things around.”
Across the country, NHS England has published a vision to reshape the NHS that calls for a ‘fundamental shift in the way urgent and emergency care services are provided to all ages, improving out of hospital services so that we deliver more care closer to home and reduce hospital attendances and admissions’.
Yvonne said: “We know that we can play a pivotal role in delivering the NHS’ vision for urgent and emergency care. I am really pleased that our bid to spearhead the development in urgent and emergency care was awarded to the North East region. This is really exciting because we are not just developing urgent and emergency care in the North East; our innovation will eventually become the blueprint for these services in other parts of the country as well.”
In her first 12 months, Yvonne has overseen the creation and recruitment of a new frontline supervision post for all emergency care staff to ensure more support for those 999 workers and overseen the selection and training of more than 200 student paramedics over the next three years.
“My top priority when I joined NEAS was to stem the flow of people leaving and make sure we were recruiting to full staffing levels. We are now above current establishment levels in control, we have a small shortfall in PTS and we are beginning to making some progress in emergency care,” said Yvonne.
“Alongside recruitment, we have also started to integrate our patient transport and emergency care operations which has helped us to reduce our reliance on third party providers. I also introduced a voluntary severance scheme for support service staff that has allowed us to save on back-office costs and reinvest these savings into frontline resources,” Yvonne added.
ENDS
Notes to editors
North East Ambulance Service is part of a much wider NHS system that is being reshaped by NHS England’s vision for NHS services by 2020. These are being driven by “Vanguard” schemes. There are nine high impact areas where NEAS will play a pivotal role in the urgent and emergency care system of our region:
- Expanding the clinical hub in control to provide more support to call handlers in both 999 and 111 to ensure patients receive the right response or be referred to an alternative service if that is what is required to reduce pressure on dispatch and emergency care crews. The hub started two years ago and we are now recruiting additional posts to support the expansion.
- Increase our “hear-and-treat” and “see-and-treat” rates by enhancing the skills of the ambulance workforce. We have started work on how we make clearer the career progression routes for staff and how they achieve the necessary qualifications with the support of local universities. We are also aiming to recruit to full paramedic establishment by September 2016, which will relieve some of the front-line emergency care pressures.
- We will be putting in plans to have direct access to community health and social care rapid response services, including falls services, as an effective alternative to A&E
- Paramedics and nurses will be empowered and supported to refer patients they have assessed in person to primary care and hospital-based expertise, combined with conveyance to non-A&E destinations including urgent care centres, assessment units and ambulatory emergency care units.
- Enhanced working with community mental health teams to improve access to early triage and assessment by mental health professionals. This will also be supported by timely access to crisis care at home and in community-based settings.
- Enhanced working with primary care, particularly for paramedic practitioners undertaking acute home visits on behalf of GPs, to avoid unnecessary admission and admission surges; ‘call back’ schemes whereby in-hours and out-of-hours primary care staff follow-up patients who have been managed at home and not transported by ambulance clinicians; joint planning with GPs and other relevant system partners to agree management plans for high-volume service users/frequent callers.
- Enhanced use of information and communication technologies. We have started the process to buy a new electronic patient record system which is more portable and intuitive with touch screen technology and improved Bluetooth capability. ECS staff will be testing new devices in the coming months ahead of roll out by July 2016. This and other technologies will allow greater sharing and access to electronic patient records to support clinical decision-making; implementation of electronic patient handovers; and sharing predicted activity levels with acute trusts on an hourly and daily basis to trigger effective escalation protocols.
- Increased use of alternative vehicles to convey patients. Our Integrated Care and Transport (ICAT) project is already supporting us to use alternative vehicles to transport, whenever it is safe and appropriate to do so, thereby freeing up and improving the availability of “front line” ambulance resources
- For patients who do need to be taken to hospital, we are working with hospitals to minimise handover delays