Ambulance service to drop bikes and cars

Ambulance bosses are moving away from using response cars and motorcycles in a bid to offer patients better care.

But now Mark Docherty, executive director of clinical commissioning at the service, said he was moving away from that way of thinking.

Speaking to members of Shropshire Council’s health and adult social care overview and scrutiny committee on Monday, he said he was now concentrating on ambulances and defibrillators.

He said: “For a while we began concentrating on how we could reach patients as quickly as possible.

“We invested a lot in response cars, a lot of motorcycles and even bicycles.

“But what we found was that it was all well and good getting a paramedic there, but what do they then do with the patient?

“You can’t transfer someone who has suffered cardiac arrest to hospital via bicycle or car.

“So we are concentrating on ambulances. All of our fleet are less than five years old, almost every ambulance has a paramedic on and they are so reliable.

“Other trusts don’t have ambulances as good as ours and some ambulance services only have a paramedic on board 35 per cent of the time.

“Our fleet is reliable, we are proud of our response times and we are always working hard to better ourselves.”

Mr Docherty said he also believed having more defibrillators was the way to go.

“We need them on every street corner really,” he said.

“If someone suffers cardiac arrest they need urgent attention. If we can’t get somewhere quick enough, especially somewhere rural, then we need to rely on defibrillators to help us out until we can get there.”

Mr Docherty also paid tribute to the service’s staff.

“We have a fantastic team and we offer them all the help we can,” he said.

“Sometimes they have to deal with some horrific situations so we want to help them deal with that as best as possible.”