Under-pressure ambulance service recruits six staff
INCREASING demand has seen the St John Emergency Ambulance Service recruiting more staff.
In its recently published 2022 patient survey, head of operations Dean de la Mare said 2021 was its busiest on record and that demand for ambulance services is at an all-time high.
In light of this, a recruitment campaign was run recently and has led to six new members of staff being trained for the core ambulance service, while more will be recruited to help with the patient transfer one.
‘We have six to add to the teams and we’ll probably be recruiting again later in the year,’ said Mr de la Mare.
‘That’s going to help with our resilience, but it takes time to get someone up to standard.’
Some of the new recruits will go to the UK for advanced ambulance training which will lead to their becoming emergency medical technicians in the service.
Of the half-dozen recruits, two are to replace staff who have left, while four are additional to establishment and will bring the total up to 32.
The service has relied on staff coming in when they are off-shift to help out on occasions due to the demand and Mr de la Mare said it was very grateful to those staff members.
The vast majority of the service’s calls continue to be to falls.
‘We’re seeing people staying at home for longer rather than going into care homes so our main calls continue to be people falling, and non-injured falls where we’re called to help people up off the floor.’
But so far this year the number of such calls was about the same as at the same time last year, he said.
Changes are also being considered to the service’s subscription scheme, which were raised in the survey.
‘We’ve looked at the feedback we’ve received and we’re going to review the payment methods,’ said Mr de la Mare.
Annual payments are the only method available at present, but the idea of a monthly payment system will be considered, or renewal at other times of the year.
