West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust serves a population of 6 million people and covers an area of more than 5,000 square miles.
The area is made up of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Coventry and the Birmingham and Black Country conurbation.
As an organisation, we were formed in 2006 bringing four previous services together. In January 2013, we were authorised as a Foundation Trust and, in line with the provisions of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, was licensed as a provider of NHS Services on 1 April 2013. As a Foundation Trust, we must have a Constitution that is compliant with current statute and the regulators Code of Governance.
The West Midlands is incredibly diverse and contrasting; it includes the second largest urban area in the country (Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country) yet over 80% of the area is rural. We are the second most ethnically diverse region in the country after London which makes it vital that we work closely with the many different communities we serve by listening and responding to their suggestions to ensure that our service meets the needs of everyone in the region.
As the region’s emergency ambulance service, we respond to around 4,000 ‘999’ calls each day. To manage that level of demand, we employ approximately 7,500 staff and operate from 15 fleet preparation hubs across the region as well as our Headquarters at Millennium Point in Brierley Hill.
Surprisingly, many people still think ambulance services only take patients to hospital when in fact, less than half go to an emergency department. The rest are either treated at the scene, given advice over the phone or taken to another service such as a GP or minor injuries unit.
We have invested heavily in the skills of our staff. We are the first and only Trust in the country to have a paramedic on every vehicle and it is these additional skills that enable them to carry out many more treatments at the scene and en-route to hospital, if it is required, which improves patient care.
We also provide non-emergency patient transport services (PTS) across some parts of the region for those patients who require non-emergency transport to and from hospital and who are unable to travel unaided because of their medical condition or clinical need. Our staff complete approximately 1,000,000 non-emergency patient journeys each year.