Exploring the role improved support and control facilities can play in increasing the ambulance service’s productivity.
- The ambulance estate in England has a growing maintenance backlog which has reached over £146 million, including a rapidly increasing proportion of high-risk repairs.
- Although transformation is being impeded due to a lack of capital funding across the NHS, some trusts are succeeding in improving their services. This is above all where strong relationships are maintained with integrated care boards with which they are coterminous.
- Poor facilities are increasing running costs, endangering staff, blocking progress to net zero, and impeding the shift to an electric ambulance fleet.
- Significant productivity gains can be achieved by investing in the ambulance estate, including steps such as adopting the ‘make ready’ model set out in the Carter review and pursuing co-location.
- This briefing sets out the current condition of ambulance trusts’ estates. It explains the role that improved support and control facilities can play in increasing the ambulance service’s productivity and highlights some key areas of best practice already apparent in England and Wales.
- It will be of interest to those within systems and ambulance trusts alike who are seeking to upgrade their own facilities, as well as anyone who is eager to better understand the chief enablers of better productivity within the sector and some of the barriers to change which can exist. It has been drawn together following discussions with leaders across England and Wales, all of whom are currently responsible for managing and transforming their services’ facilities.
