Teesside Medicar scheme extended
An innovative scheme to help people injured in late night incidents on Teesside is to be extended.
The Medicar is a joint initiative involving Cleveland Police and the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) and currently operates on Friday nights from 7.30pm to 3.30am.
The vehicle is manned by special constables and paramedics and allows both emergency services to respond more quickly to incidents such as assaults, people being taken ill and road traffic collisions.
It has been running since October 2018 and from the weekend of November 29/30 it will also operate on Saturday nights.
Previously both the police and the ambulance service would respond separately to an incident. The Medicar is fitted with equipment from both services, including a defibrillator, so that people can be helped more quickly while deciding whether further support is needed at the scene.
NEAS Clinical Operations Manager Daryen Lemmon said:
“Due to the success of the scheme over the last 12 months, we have decided to operate the Medicar on Saturday nights too. It means that we can treat patients more quickly while at the same time use our resources more effectively.
“It’s an excellent example of emergency services working together to help our local communities.”
Assistant Chief Officer of Cleveland Police Special Constabulary Rob Lynas said: “The Medicar shows partnership working at its best.
“I have personally seen some examples of great work and incidents where life-saving treatment was administered whilst further help was on route. I have also seen where the scheme has prevented further deployment of resources from either police or ambulance and Medicar can reduce demand on both services.
“The Medicar has been first on scene for a range of jobs, from an attempted murder to medical emergencies. We’re pleased to be able to extend the scheme and continue responding jointly to incidents which require both services.”
During the first year of the trial the Medicar team has responded to more than 200 incidents. By attending incidents, 146 ambulances have been stood down – freeing them up to attend other incidents and the Medicar team has taken 34 patients to hospital.
Notes to editors
Notes to editors
For more information, contact the NEAS press office on 07559 918672 or email publicrelations@neas.nhs.uk
About North East Ambulance Service
North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (NEAS) covers 3,200 square miles across the North East region. It employs more than 2,600 staff and serves a population of 2.7 million people by handling all NHS111 and 999 calls for the region, operating patient transport and ambulance response services, delivering training for communities and commercial audiences and providing medical support cover at events.
In 2017/18 the service answered over 1.4 million emergency 999 and NHS 111 calls, responded to 280,000 incidents that resulted in a patient being taken to hospital, treated and discharged 27,000 patients with telephone advice and treated and discharged over 100,000 patients at home. In the same year, clinical crews responded to 126,746 of our highest priority patients within the national targets and scheduled care crews completed almost 580,000 patient transport journeys.