Non emergency

Not only do our non emergency crews take patient to and from routine hospital appointments, many of them are also trained to respond to potentially life-threatening emergencies, such as cardiac arrests.

Every year, our PTS staff undertake about 1.2 million patient journeys to and from hospitals, treatment centres and other health related facilities across Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

Operating in a range of vehicles from a standard car, through multi-purpose ambulances capable of carrying several passengers, including those that are in wheelchairs, or must be conveyed on a stretcher, to specialist urgent care ambulances for more seriously ill patients, these staff remain a vital part of our service.

The patients transported need our services either because they have no transport of their own or they need specialist care en route to their hospital or treatment centre. Our patient surveys tell us that 65% of patients access our services because they have mobility problems, while 56% would not attend their appointment if they did not receive our help.

We have an ongoing modernisation programme that ensures our vehicles that we use on a day to day basis are no older than six years.  Each new generation of vehicle incorporates the latest improvements in facilities and patient comfort, equipment and security.  The current generation comply fully with the latest EU regulations.

Our staff are our most important asset as they are responsible for the direct patient care that we deliver and are our shop window to the world. We invest heavily in our staff training to ensure that they receive the most up to date levels of training, which is refreshed on an annual basis.

The majority of our PTS staff are Ambulance Transport Assistants, sometimes referred to as Ambulance Care Assistants. As new entrants they receive a robust four week training course that includes basic life support, manual handling, defibrillation, patient assessment, dealing with patients that have dementia, driving skills, and how to deal with a patient in an emergency situation. All these skills are underwritten by formal training processes and are accredited by BTEC.

Where additional skills are required there are also a number of Emergency Medical Technicians employed within PTS. They are fully trained to 999 standards and have most of the same skills and training as paramedics. Their role is to support PTS in the transfer of seriously ill patients between hospitals and to specialist centres of excellence.

The service is complemented by the volunteers who work for the ambulance car service. On a daily basis these volunteers take many patients (whose conditions allow them to sit in a car) to various hospitals and treatment centres across the region and further afield.

Our high dependency vehicles undertake some GP Urgent work. Click here to find out more.

Our staffing is not limited to front line crews that care for patients on the vehicles - our control and communication centres are the hub of our service. Based at Norwich, Ipswich, Peterborough, Colchester, Chelmsford, Southend and Basildon, these centres are responsible for the receipt and recording of all bookings, dealing with transport queries and planning the journeys that are to be undertaken the next day.

In addition to the main centres there are also Liaison Offices in all the major hospitals where our staff are the public face of the PTS division. They also deal with bookings and queries, but also with any problems that occur on the day such as late arrivals, changes in patient appointments, and most importantly that every patient is conveyed and nobody is left behind.

Patient satisfaction for this service is among the best in the NHS, with 98% satisfied or very satisfied.

Our ongoing patient satisfaction surveys show that just 2% of respondents are unhappy with the service provided to them, with more than 76% say they are “very satisfied” with the service.

It is also heartening to see many positive comments from the surveys and from letters which show that our staff and voluntary drivers are highly thought of by their patients. For some patient groups, the regular attendance of the PTS staff to their house is the only way that they can get out of the house.

With ever-increasing pressure to undertake more journeys with limited resources, it is pleasing that the staff and drivers at the sharp end of the operation continue to be totally committed and dedicated to patient care.

The PTS services is also accredited to ISO9001:2000 standards, which is externally audited to ensure that the process that go behind the activities are efficient, effective, safe and fit for purpose.