"147 New Ambulances"

The request was successful.

Dear East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust,

I have noticed your Trust keeps saying how you have 147 new ambulances on the road. This was repeated in a recent article where the Health Minister met with senior staff at the Trust.
Can you tell everyone if this means you actually have an extra 147 ambulances on the road at any one time?

An ambulance crew obviously consists of 2 people and to provide 24 hour a day, 7 day a week cover for one vehicle I understand requires at least 8 staff.
That would mean an extra 1176 staff. That would be quite a dramatic turnaround.

Yours faithfully,

J Lowe

FOI, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Dear J Lowe

Thank you for your email dated 6th July 2014 where you requested information regarding the East of England Ambulance Service.

Your request will be dealt with under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and we will respond to you within twenty working days. Your request has been allocated the following reference: F18254 and I would be grateful if you could quote this reference in any future correspondence with the Trust.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

show quoted sections

FOI, East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

Dear J Lowe

Further to your email dated 6th July 2014. The 147 is broken down as follows: 120 replacement vehicles and 27 additional vehicles. Of the 120, 6 of these were replacements for High Dependency Unit vehicles so these were upgraded to full A&E specification when they were replaced.

Should you have further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards

FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust

show quoted sections

Dear East of England Ambulance Service

Hopefully in the future you will now make it clear that the vast majority of these "new" ambulances are actually just replacement vehicles for very old ones and it doesn't mean you are putting large numbers of extra resources on the road, particularly when you cut the number of your DSAs a while back.

Yours sincerely,

J Lowe