Update from Dr Anthony Marsh: 'it's time to make it happen'

This week I met MPs in Westminster to update them on the progress we have made in my first six months at EEAST. As you know, there is a lot of interest and expectation outside of the organisation on how we will progress and in particular how we will use the additional funding from our commissioners to improve our service to patients. 

We are making good progress against our six priorities already and MPs are encouraged by the number of student paramedics we have recruited who are in training, our 147 new ambulances that are on the road, our push to have more clinical staff on the frontline and the reinvestment of corporate spend into recruiting and training more paramedics. 

They are also pleased to see the strict timetable for how we will improve our service to patients, which has been agreed as part of the contract with our commissioners for our extra funding. The commissioners expect to see evidence of how the money is enabling us to deliver better care and as I have said, it is now time for us all to make this happen. 

This table below sets out how the Trust will improve on Red 1, Red 2 and A19 performance from this month: 

Performance  trajectory	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar
R1	67%	69%	70%	78%	78%	74%	77%	79%	82%
R2	60%	61%	62%	78%	77%	73%	77%	78%	81%
A19	90%	91%	91%	92%	92%	90%	92%	93%	96%

 

This is the regional trajectory for the Trust and your senior locality manager will be speaking with you soon about the expectations for your area. Providing a fast response to our patients is an extremely important element of providing a quality service – the sooner we get to the patient, the sooner we can start our assessment, provide the right treatment and get them to hospital if required. The overwhelming number of complaints we receive are for delayed responses to 999 cases. 

Improving our time response to patients is the right thing to do and if we do not meet these targets, we will not receive the full amount of funding, which will impact on our ability to invest in existing staff, further new ambulances, new medical equipment and the recruitment of graduate and student paramedics. 

The latest performance figures of all ambulance trusts was published by NHS England last week and we find ourselves at the bottom of the table again for speed of response. We have to take this opportunity to improve – this is our chance to make a real difference for our patients and staff; I want us to be one of the best performing ambulance services, where we can be proud of our services and achievement and where every patient get the very best possible response and care.

Published 10th July, 2014