Meet North East Ambulance Service’s latest recruits

Faced with a national shortage of qualified paramedics for some time, North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) is celebrating welcoming its latest recruits.

So far, NEAS has recruited an additional 39 qualified paramedics this year and has more to come.

The latest paramedics to join the Trust are Lucasz Kudla, David Rogers, Katarzyna Ciszewska, Pawel Piernikowski, Jacob Gunn, Emil Krzywiec, and Graham Weegram

All have either relocated from another part of the country or are international paramedics looking to start a new life overseas.

The shortage of paramedics is a national issue, and resulted in the profession being placed on the Government’s shortage occupation list last year.

However, the issue is particularly acute in the North East.

In April 2015, NEAS had 116 paramedic vacancies across the region. This figure has now decreased to 72.

Between September 2016 and April 2017, around 80 NEAS employees currently studying a two-year programme with Teesside University will also qualify as paramedics. 

This is in addition to the 19 NEAS employees who have just started on the new two-year Diploma of Higher Education in Paramedic Practice at the University of Sunderland, and the 19 who have already been accepted to start on the next cohort.

The shortage mirrors some of the recruitment pressures that other sectors such as nursing face. With the clinical skills of paramedics opening up a much wider range of job possibilities, ambulance services have been losing paramedics to other parts of the NHS, such as walk-in centres, urgent care centres, off-shore industries, or they have moved abroad or into the private sector.

Chief Executive at NEAS, Yvonne Ormston, said: “A combination of workload pressure, pay and impending pension changes may have been contributory key factors in the recent decline of our paramedic numbers and for these reasons, recruitment has been our top priority for the last two years and we have explored a number of possibilities, including recruitment from overseas.

“We have doubled our student paramedic intake and we are creating development opportunities for our qualified paramedics to make working for NEAS more attractive in such a competitive marketplace – we’ve introduced a new Advanced Practitioner role at Band 7 and have made a financial investment into supporting and developing our front line staff with the introduction of the new Emergency Care Clinical Manager role.

“We’re investing more in training and opportunities to make NEAS a better place to work. This includes our new two year Diploma of Higher Education in Paramedic Practice at the University of Sunderland, which attracted 174 applicants for the first intake and will take on three cohorts of 20 students per year. We also have a number of our staff studying at Teesside University and we’re working closely with degree students at Teesside University who graduate this month but don’t already work for us in the hope that they choose to come to us.

“We fully acknowledge that we haven’t always been able to provide our patients with the service that they deserve and our frontline staff have shouldered an extremely difficult burden during this time but filling our vacancies will make us a much more resilient organisation and better able to deliver improved performance and ensure patient safety.”

Lucasz, Katarzyna, Pawel and Emil have all joined the Trust from Poland and are based at Middlesbrough Station.

David has swapped Birmingham for Fishburn, Jacob has returned home to Newcastle after working in Manchester and Graham, based in Hartlepool, is returning to NEAS after leaving the Trust to work as an offshore medic.

David, aged 23, had been working for a private company when a recommendation from a friend turned his attention to NEAS.

He said: “I joined NEAS as one of my friends from the university course joined, and was very positive about the Trust. I liked the idea of moving to a Trust that was trying to improve and change for the better.

“The areas of countryside in the area are amazing, so it’s nice to be near two national parks. I’m really enjoying my time with NEAS so far, and have been made to feel very welcome.”

For Emil, aged 31, moving to England was a chance to make a better life for him and his young family.

He said: “I wanted to develop my skills but in Poland we don’t have many opportunities to do this.

“I have always liked the English language and whenever I have thought about developing myself, I have always thought about England.

“I chose NEAS because I had heard the people here are friendly and I liked that it was near the sea. I’ve really settled here and can’t wait to make it home for my wife and daughter, who is nearly two.”