Update on Tour De France plans

As you’ll be aware from our earlier news story, the Tour De France is coming to England, and will be travelling through our patch on Monday 7^th July. As a result, approximately one million people are expected to line the route from Cambridge to London on the day and road closures will be in place throughout the day.

The roads in the immediate vicinity of Parkers Piece in Cambridge will be closed from 6pm onwards on Sunday 6^th July, with the other road closures due to come into place at 7am on 7^th July. A temporary ‘systems status plan’ will be put into place to take account of these road closures and details will be published shortly along with maps of the affected area.

As a result of the road closures and the amount of people travelling to watch the Tour, Cambridge in particular is likely to be very congested.

To find out how you will be personally affected if you live in that area, please visit your local council website: www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk, www.essex.gov.uk  

Please ensure that you allow extra time for travel to work, and check beforehand as to whether your route may be affected.

Some Cambridge businesses, including schools and nurseries, may close for the day so please check beforehand to ensure you don’t face any childcare issues.

Medical cover

We are providing minimal medical cover to the event itself. Medical cover for cyclists is organised by the Tour de France, and St John Ambulance will be providing medical cover to the spectators at areas of high attendance or risk. They will have a mix of foot patrols, cycle response units, ambulances and treatment centres along the route. Clearly however, we will need to respond to any patient who needs emergency medical care and we will be working closely with St John over responding to 999 calls in the vicinity of their response teams.

Our resources

• The race peloton itself with be supported by two of our emergency ambulances and two London Ambulance Service (LAS) paramedic motorcycles; we, along with LAS and Yorkshire Ambulance Service, will also provide an Ambulance Liaison Officers
• Essex will have two DOMS shadowing the Tour to provide local management presence if required
• Extra ambulance cover is going to be put on in Essex and Cambridge on the day. We will also be having additional staff in the control rooms to help with resource deployment.
• Community first responder arrangements are being enhanced for the day
• In Cambridge we will have a team of cycle response unit paramedics, along with a HALO at Addenbrooke’s
• We will have a full command and control structure in place with Dave Fountain as Gold Commander, as well as Silver and Bronze commanders in the relevant locations.

Access to Addenbrooke’s

• The trauma centre at Addenbrooke’s will be running as normal and access to the helipad won’t be affected.
• We will be providing a treatment centre at the road closure point for Addenbrooke’s, which will be staffed by an emergency care practitioner and supported by the resilience team. 

Communications

• More details about the road closures and other important information concerning the Tour De France will be published on Need To Know in due course.
• The Tour will bring with it a heavy media presence. If you do get approached by the media, please direct all enquiries to the Trust press office 01763 268 772.
• The Trust communications team will be working with the other agency communications teams, i.e. police and fire in order to promote public safety messages before the event, as well as our involvement.

If you have any questions about our plans, please email Kevin Rawlins, kevin.rawlins@eastamb.nhs.uk.

Find out more about the Tour De France coming to England: http://letour.yorkshire.com/