Update from Anthony Marsh - 12th March 2015

On Tuesday I met with several MPs from the east of England to give them my latest update on what has been happening at the Trust. The meeting went extremely well, due to the real progress we have made as an organisation and the change in our position from 18 months ago, when a number of MPs were very critical of our service, and rightly so.

The MPs were particularly impressed with how we have become one of the top performing ambulance services in terms of our EOC call pick-up and the response to our most critical patients. They were also pleased with how we have reduced some of the really long ambulance delays our patients were experiencing.

They were keen to hear about our programme to drive a more positive and proactive culture through the Trust. This has started with the work we are doing on what our vision and values should be – and we really want to hear your positive thoughts on where this service should be heading for; please think ambitiously in your replies.

We did discuss our shared concern about the impact of hospital handover delays on our patients and staff. The MPs agree that it is not acceptable for patients to wait for a long time to be admitted to A&E, just as it isn’t acceptable for a patient in the community to wait for an ambulance because our staff and resources are delayed at hospitals. This is an issue we continue to raise locally and nationally, as we are still seeing some significant handover delays.

I was extremely proud to tell MPs about the hard work of our staff, managers and volunteers and how this has led to our tremendous turnaround and they asked me to pass on their appreciation. I said that we remain absolutely focussed on continuing to see these improvements through, until we achieve our ambition for EEAST together; to be a high performing ambulance service and one of the best organisations to work for.  

Published 12th March 2015