Thank you for your email. This acknowledgement has been triggered
electronically and means that your email has been received by the
Information Governance Department. Your request will be dealt with under
the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and it is our intention to respond to
you within twenty working days.

Please note that the volume of FoI requests received by this Trust now
exceeds available resources and given the need for all Trusts to reduce
corporate expenditure to within those targets set by the Carter Review, no
additional capacity is available to support our increasing workload.
Depending on the complexity and volume of your request, this context may
impact on our ability to respond to your request as soon as we would like.

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear Finlay,

Further to your email on the 16th February, please find the Trusts response below. Your request has been allocated the following reference: 19796 please quote this reference in any future correspondence with the Trust.

How many ambulances dispatched following 999 calls were operated by private ambulance firms in 2018?

Please find below the figures for calendar year 2018, this data does not include 111 calls, test or duplicate calls. These figures show the number of vehicles assigned to incidents and then how many reached the incident scene

Vehicles assigned to incidents
January 2817
February 2759
March 2673
April 2805
May 3328
June 3225
July 4168
August 3979
September 3777
October4763
November 5120
December 4873
Total 44287

Vehicles reaching the incident scene
January 2006
February 1869
March 1910
April 1881
May 2145
June 2085
July2754
August 2514
September 2393
October3071
November 3281
December 3238
Total 29147

How much did East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust spend on private ambulance services in 2018?
£6,230,549

Which, if any, private ambulance firms received money for operation of services on behalf of East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2018?
ST JOHN AMBULANCE (SHARED AC CTR)
ELITE EVENT MEDICAL SERVICES LTD
CENTRAL MEDICAL SERVICES LTD
JIGSAW MEDICAL SERVICES LTD
SSG UK SPECIALIST AMBULANCE SERVICES LTD
POLARIS MEDICAL SERVICES LTD
FALCK UK AMBULANCE SERVICE LIMITED

I am obliged to advise you that if you are dissatisfied with the Trust’s response to your request you have a right to complain to the Trust and should set out your concerns to the Freedom of Information Officer, EEAST, Hospital Approach, Broomfield, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 7WS or by email to [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]. If you remain dissatisfied following this, you have a right under Section 50 of the FOIA to seek a determination from the Information Commissioner on whether the Act has been properly applied by the Trust. For more information, please see www.ico.gov.uk.

Under the Accessible Information Standard the Trust are required to ask our FOI applicants equality and diversity questions. You are under no obligation; however we would be grateful if you could complete the form attached and email back to us.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.

Kind regards

FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Please note our new email address: [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]

________________________________________
From: Finlay Cox <[FOI #552976 email]>
Sent: 16 February 2019 00:00
To: foi (EAST OF ENGLAND AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS TRUST)
Subject: Freedom of Information request - Private Ambulance Operation

Dear East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust,

Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to request the following information:

How many ambulances dispatched following 999 calls were operated by private ambulance firms in 2018?
How much did East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust spend on private ambulance services in 2018?
Which, if any, private ambulance firms received money for operation of services on behalf of East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2018?

Yours faithfully,
Finlay Cox

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #552976 email]

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dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear Finlay,

Further to your email on the 16th March, please find the Trusts response below.

Further to FoI request 19796, could you breakdown how much of the £6,230,549 total each private ambulance firm received from East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2018

Regarding the question above for the financial information to be broken down by provider, the Trust has considered this question carefully and has determined this information is commercially confidential. Therefore we will be applying exemption s.43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act to this part of your request.

Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act provides an exemption from disclosure of information which would or would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of any person or company (including the public authority holding it).

The term ‘commercial interests’ is not defined in the Freedom of Information Act, however, the ICO’s awareness guidance on the application of section 43 states:
“… a commercial interest relates to a person’s ability to participate competitively in a commercial activity, i.e. the purchase and sale of goods or services.”

The Trust feels that as this question relates to payments to agencies this falls within the scope of the exemption. The Trust is a major purchaser of goods and services and holds a wide range of information and if the Trust was to provide this information to the requester regarding the amount of money paid to each private ambulance provider it could impact on how competitors or other companies use this information in the future to gain advantage. This could also disadvantage both the company currently providing the service to the Trust and ultimately to the Trust itself as it seeks to demonstrate value for money.

As section 43(2) is a qualified exemption, the Trust has gone on to consider the public interest in this case.

The Trust accepts that there is a public interest in determining how public money is spent. However whilst there is a need for transparency, there is also a public interest in ensuring that the Trust gets value for money. The Trust should be able to work with companies and work without the risk of financial details becoming publicly available. This would undoubtedly affect the interests of the [third parties] and their ability to compete fairly in the future.

Therefore on balance the Trust considers that the public interest in favour of disclosure is outweighed by the public interest in favour of maintaining the exemption.

I am obliged to advise you that if you are dissatisfied with the Trust’s response to your request you have a right to complain to the Trust and should set out your concerns to the Freedom of Information Officer, EEAST, Hospital Approach, Broomfield, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 7WS or by email to [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]. If you remain dissatisfied following this, you have a right under Section 50 of the FOIA to seek a determination from the Information Commissioner on whether the Act has been properly applied by the Trust. For more information, please see www.ico.gov.uk.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.

Kind regards

FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Please note our new email address: [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]

________________________________________
From: Finlay Cox <[FOI #552976 email]>
Sent: 16 March 2019 16:36
To: foi (EAST OF ENGLAND AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS TRUST)
Subject: Re: FOI - 19796

Dear foi (EAST OF ENGLAND AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS TRUST),

Thank you for this information.

Further to FoI request 19796, could you breakdown how much of the £6,230,549 total each private ambulance firm received from East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2018

Yours sincerely,

Finlay Cox

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

Dear Finlay,

Further to your email on the 22nd March, please see the Trusts response below.

Would it be possible to breakdown how much of the total £6,230,549 spent on private ambulance services in 2018 was for:

a) Emergency Response = £6,230,549
b) Patient Transport = £2,107,087
c) Other = £0

I am obliged to advise you that if you are dissatisfied with the Trust’s response to your request you have a right to complain to the Trust and should set out your concerns to the Freedom of Information Officer, EEAST, Hospital Approach, Broomfield, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 7WS or by email to [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]. If you remain dissatisfied following this, you have a right under Section 50 of the FOIA to seek a determination from the Information Commissioner on whether the Act has been properly applied by the Trust. For more information, please see www.ico.gov.uk.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.

Kind regards
FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Please note our new email address: [East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust request email]

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir

From: Finlay Cox <[FOI #552976 email]>
Sent: 16 March 2019 16:36
To: foi (EAST OF ENGLAND AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS TRUST)
Subject: Re: FOI - 19796

Dear foi (EAST OF ENGLAND AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS TRUST),

Thank you for this information.

Further to FoI request 19796, could you breakdown how much of the £6,230,549 total each private ambulance firm received from East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust in 2018

Yours sincerely,

Finlay Cox

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Please use this email address for all replies to this request:
[FOI #552976 email]

Disclaimer: This message and any reply that you make will be published on the internet. Our privacy and copyright policies:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/offi...

For more detailed guidance on safely disclosing information, read the latest advice from the ICO:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/help/ico-...

Please note that in some cases publication of requests and responses will be delayed.

If you find this service useful as an FOI officer, please ask your web manager to link to us from your organisation's FOI page.

dangos adrannau a ddyfynnir