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The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is an
ambulance An ambulance is a medically-equipped vehicle used to transport patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to ...
service that serves the whole of
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
, approximately 1.9 million people. As with other ambulance services in the United Kingdom, it does not charge its patients directly for its services, but instead receives funding through general
taxation A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal person, legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to Pigouvian tax, regulate and reduce nega ...
. It responds to medical emergencies in Northern Ireland with the 300-plus ambulance vehicles at its disposal. Its fleet includes mini-buses, ambulance officers' cars, support vehicles, RRVs and accident and emergency ambulances.


History

NIAS was formed on 1 April 1995 through the amalgamation of its four predecessors. Its full title is the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust. The service is split up into five operational areas: *Belfast Area, headquartered at Broadway Ambulance Station,
Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...
*South Eastern Area, headquartered at Bangor Ambulance Station *Western Area, headquartered at Altnagelvin Hospital,
Derry Derry, officially Londonderry, is the second-largest City status in the United Kingdom, city in Northern Ireland, and the fifth-largest on the island of Ireland. Located in County Londonderry, the city now covers both banks of the River Fo ...
*Northern Area, headquartered at
Ballymena Ballymena ( ; from , meaning 'the middle townland') is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 31,205 people at the 2021 United Kingdom census, making it the List of localities in Northern Ireland by population, seven ...
Ambulance Station *Southern Area, headquartered at Craigavon Area Hospital


Services

The service employs approximately 1,300 staff of which approximately 420 are
paramedic A paramedic is a healthcare professional trained in the medical model, whose main role has historically been to respond to emergency calls for medical help outside of a hospital. Paramedics work as part of the emergency medical services (EMS), ...
s, 300 are
emergency medical technician An emergency medical technician (often, more simply, EMT) is a medical professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found serving on ambulances and in fire departments in the US and Canada, as full-time and som ...
s (EMT) and 100 are control centre staff, which work shift patterns to ensure the service is operational 24/7. They are based across 46 stations and sub-stations, two control centres (emergency and non-emergency) and a regional ambulance training centre. It responds to approximately 201,000 emergency (999) calls per year (with the number of 999 calls is increasing per year) with a combination of traditional emergency ambulances with two crew members, and rapid response vehicles (RRV) crewed by a single paramedic. RRVs respond mostly to calls where there is a potential immediate life-threat (Category 1) because they can respond more quickly than a conventional ambulance, RRVs can also be used to respond to lower category of calls that may not require hospital care. Double-crew ambulances respond to both emergency and non-emergency (healthcare professional-initiated urgent) calls as well as providing critical-care transfers between hospitals. The Trust aims to provide at least one paramedic to every emergency call by staffing each double-crew emergency ambulance with two paramedics, or a paramedic and an EMT, and utilising RRV. The trust has not adopted the controversial use of emergency care assistants (ECA) in the way some other UK ambulance services have. In addition to the
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 ...
, NIAS has a fleet of Patient Care Service vehicles which are used for more routine patient transport to/from hospital. Within the Patient Care Service there are both single-crewed 'sitting case' (minibus) vehicles as well as double-crewed 'intermediate care vehicles' (ICV) which carry a stretcher. In 2019, the service entered a partnership with the Ulster University to deliver a foundation degree in Paramedic Science, with the first cohort of trainees graduating in December 2019 and the final 'fourth' cohort graduating in January 2023. Future cohorts are now managed directly by Ulster University with the BSc honours degree commencing in September 2021. In 2016, NIAS was commissioned to provide a helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) for the first time in Northern Ireland, which was by then the only region of the UK not to have one. Following a public consultation, they partnered with the charity Air Ambulance Northern Ireland who provide the aircraft and airbase, with the doctors and paramedics provided by NIAS. The service undertook its first live mission in August 2017.


Performance

NIAS triages all emergency calls using an internationally recognised system of prioritisation. Currently it has a target time of eight minutes to reach the scene of the highest priority calls i.e. those deemed to represent an immediate risk to life, but during December 2017 only 47.5% of this target was met therefore the average response time in Northern Ireland was 16 minutes 10 seconds. Currently the trust works with volunteer and private ambulance services to help cope and meet key response times, this is a result of the current increased demand due to an
aging population Population ageing is an overall change in the ages of a population. This can typically be summarised in a single parameter as an increase in the median age. Causes are a long-term decline in fertility rates and a decline in mortality rates. Most ...
and the squeeze on
public spending Government spending or expenditure includes all government consumption, investment, and transfer payments. In national income accounting, the acquisition by governments of goods and services for current use, to directly satisfy the individual o ...
across Northern Ireland over the last decade. Staff have expressed concern by the growing pressures they face and overall low morale across the service. The ambulance service aims to restructure their service to cope with future increased demand. In September 2018, the ambulance service requested an additional £30million in funding from the
Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their o ...
to restructure the service and to recruit an additional 300 staff members, most of whom would be
Paramedic A paramedic is a healthcare professional trained in the medical model, whose main role has historically been to respond to emergency calls for medical help outside of a hospital. Paramedics work as part of the emergency medical services (EMS), ...
s, EMTs and emergency call takers. This recruitment is meant to quicken response times and relieve pressure on staff. As of May 2022 this funding has not been delivered. In July 2022, NIAS average regional response time to the second highest priority calls (e.g. chest pain) had risen to 39 minutes and 31 seconds. Paramedics have voiced their concern following reports that these lengthy response times have been a 'possible contributing factor' towards the death of 14 people. The current NIAS Chief Executive Michael Bloomfield has expressed his disappointment and partly blames the poor response times on the high number of staff shortages and lengthy waiting times to hand over patients at
Emergency Departments An emergency department (ED), also known as an accident and emergency department (A&E), emergency room (ER), emergency ward (EW) or casualty department, is a medical treatment facility specializing in emergency medicine, the acute care of pat ...
.


See also

* Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom *
National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the term for the publicly funded health care, publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom: the National Health Service (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social Care (Northern ...
* List of Government departments and agencies in Northern Ireland * HSE National Ambulance Service – Ambulance service in the Republic of Ireland


References


External links

*
Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority inspection reports
{{UK ambulance service Health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland Organizations established in 1995 1995 establishments in Northern Ireland