Update from Anthony Marsh: a new year but the same dedication from staff

I would like to wish you all a very happy new year and hope that you have had a safe and peaceful start to 2015.

For us and ambulance services nationally, it has been an extremely busy start, and follows a weekend of tremendously high levels of demand; these are the numbers of 999 calls we took on Saturday and Sunday compared to last year:

• 27^th December: 3,378 calls (increase of 722 calls from same day in 2013)
• 28^th December: 3,405 calls (increase of 775 calls from same day in 2013).

I myself was responding on the frontline last night and was very proud of the service we continued to provide throughout – which is all thanks to your hard work. The high-levels of activity we experienced were mirrored across the NHS, with some hospitals experiencing long delays and 111 services also receiving a large volume of calls. But throughout the whole festive period we have worked very closely with our acute colleagues, NHS England local area teams and clinical commissioning groups, and I would like to thank you all for your efforts in maintaining the best possible service to patients – from frontline staff, to stores, from fleet to support services, all of your work contributes to providing our 999 service in the east of England.

The pressure on the NHS inevitably shines a light on how trusts manage and I am very proud of how EEAST is making headway on securing our own future. More than 300 operational staff joined our frontline and more than 80 staff started work in our control rooms in 2014. We are doing everything we can to ensure we meet this extra demand and next week I will share with you our plans for how we will continue to do this in 2015.

Published 1st January, 2015