The East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EMAS) provides

emergency medical services Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services, pre-hospital care or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to d ...

, urgent care and patient transport services for the 4.8million people within the East Midlands region of the UK - covering

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

, Derbyshire (except

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the borough of High Peak (borough), High Peak, Derbyshire, England, east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of Matlock, Derbyshire, Matlock. Near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Mancheste ...

, Hadfield and Tintwistle in the High Peak district),

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire to the north, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire to the south-east, Warw ...

Rutland Rutland is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Leicestershire to the north and west, Lincolnshire to the north-east, and Northamptonshire to the south-west. Oakham is the largest town and county town. Rutland has a ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...

(including

North Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Lincolnshire, England. At the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 Census, it had a population of 167,446. T ...

and

North East Lincolnshire North East Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area with borough status in Lincolnshire, England. It borders the borough of North Lincolnshire and districts of West Lindsey and East Lindsey. The population of the district in the 2011 Census was ...

) and

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

. It was formed in 1999 by amalgamating several county ambulance services, and in July 2006 was dissolved and reformed under the same name as part of a nationwide reorganisation of ambulance service provision. East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust

East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Performance

In 201617, EMAS received over 938,837 emergency 999 calls with ambulance clinicians dispatched to 653,215 incidents. EMAS employs about 3,290 staff at more than 70 locations, including two control rooms at Nottingham and Lincoln - the largest staff group are those who provide accident and emergency responses to 999 calls. In 2013, EMAS took on 140 new emergency care assistants. In 2014, EMAS announced they were bringing back the ambulance technician role. In 201011, EMAS missed key performance targets after a cold spell brought snow and ice. By June 2015, EMAS had failed to meet their category 1 response times for the fifth successive year. In December 2019, ambulance staff spent 13,057 hours waiting at hospitals for the pre-handover of patients, more than double the time spend in December 2018.

CQC performance rating

In its last inspection of the service in April 2019, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) gave the following ratings on a scale of outstanding (the service is performing exceptionally well), good (the service is performing well and meeting our expectations), requires improvement (the service isn't performing as well as it should) and inadequate (the service is performing badly):

Funding

EMAS previously provided patient transport services until contracts worth £20million per year were taken over in 2012 by two private sector companies. In 2012−13, EMAS had a budget of £148M. The trust spent £4.3M on voluntary and private ambulance services in 201314 for support in busy periods. In 2015, the service also faced a drop in annual funding of around £6M. In October 2014, the trust decided to spend £88,000 on upgrading its computer equipment. In 2018, the trust said it would need an extra £20M a year to meet the new ambulance performance standards.

Controversy

In 2022 "demoralised and downtrodden" staff strike. In 2023, the service were criticised for quoting a 6 hour wait time for an emergency response for an unwell child who went into cardiac arrest.

References

External links