By Anna Parry, Managing Director, AACE
What unfalteringly underpins my commitment to the NHS ambulance service is its role as one of the greatest social levellers. In moments of crisis, anyone, regardless of age, sex, race, religion, or class, may need an emergency ambulance.
And when that moment comes, we call 999.
We’re seeing growing uptake of private healthcare, with adverts promising no queues and instant access. But in an emergency, it’s the NHS ambulance service that people turn to. That trust is profound and it carries with it a major responsibility.
Just as anyone may need our help, everyone deserves responsive, high-quality, and appropriate care. We know this ideal isn’t always realised, due to resource pressures and persistent health inequalities. But it remains our shared aspiration, and our guiding goal.
This is what unites us – a deep desire to care for those in need, or to enable, support, and lead those who do.
Across the UK and globally, we are living through fractious times. The immediacy of news and information exchange intensifies the impact of international instability here at home. Many people – our patients, our colleagues, and our communities – feel silenced and scared. Recent events across the UK have deepened these feelings.
We come to work in our professional roles – paramedics, call-takers, dispatchers, support staff, managers – but our personal selves, though put to one side throughout our shift or our working day, are never far away. The realities of the world around us affect us deeply, and it’s important we acknowledge the difficulty, upset, and fear that some of our colleagues and those we care for are facing.
As an ambulance sector, we strive to be inclusive and tolerant, in our workplaces and in the care we provide. Each of us holds a unique set of beliefs, values and biases informed by our backgrounds and our experiences. Inclusion and tolerance must be at the heart of our behaviours no matter what our role is within the ambulance service and regardless of our background, underlying values or personal belief systems.
There are many peer support networks across the ambulance sector, both within trusts and nationally. And for anyone who needs it, The Ambulance Services Charity (TASC), is available to all ambulance service employees, volunteers, learners, and their families.
I also encourage you to familiarise yourself with our Mental Health Continuum, here.
Please seek support if you need it and encourage your colleagues and friends at work to do the same.
Thank you,
Anna
