Trust 'delighted' to welcome new patient transport service

The Trust is ‘delighted’ that its new patient transport services (PTS) contract launched in north Essex on Friday (1^st April).

The new service, which has seen the PTS fleet almost double in size, offers transport to eligible patients for planned and routine journeys to and from any hospital or clinic in the country.

The team has recruited new staff to the team, including control room staff, patient transport drivers, and ambulance care assistants - who are now qualified to drive on blue lights. Welcome on board everyone!

Liz McEwan, Head of Non-Emergency Services, said: “I am delighted to see the new service has begun successfully, the new contract is twice the size of our previous one which should be hugely encouraging news to the patients of north Essex.

She added: “My thanks to everyone involved, it is down to their hard work that we were able to secure this contract.”

Since winning the contract last year, the PTS team has been working with commissioners to transform the existing contract to a brand new, large-scale agreement, with commissioners commenting that we have a “proven track record” in providing a high-quality service.

In a statement to the media, Chief Officer at the North East Essex CCG, Sam Hepplewhite, said: “EEAST has a proven track record in providing high quality patient transport services.  We very much look forward to working with them to ensure that the thousands of patients who use the non-emergency patient transport service every year have a quality, continually improving service.”

Published 7th April, 2016