Less ambulances / more ambulances
Dear East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust,
I note that you have employed yet another organisation to work out how many extra ambulances and rapid response vehicles (RRVs) you need.
This follows on from your disastrous decision to follow the advice of another company who told you to scrap a lot of your ambulances and have more RRVs.
Can you tell me the names of the two organisations you used who came up with such different conclusions?
Can you also tell me how much you paid to both of these organisations for the work they carried out on your behalf?
Yours faithfully,
J Lowe
Dear J Lowe
Thank you for your email dated 3rd December 2013 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: F16458 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
Dear J Lowe
Further to your email dated 3rd December 2013, please find the Trust's response below.
A clinical capacity review was undertaken by ORH Ltd which is a management consultancy company specialising in operational planning for the emergency services and for the health service. ORH has undertaken similar studies for most of the ambulance services in the country.
This review had a specific remit that was agreed by stakeholders (including commissioners, staff, and patient representatives) and ORH was asked to model clinical and time performance across this specification.
ORH Ltd was awarded the contract following a procurement exercise where a number of companies bid to undertake the work. This piece of work was unique to EEAST, and therefore the cost charged by ORH Ltd is subject to the commercially negotiated contract between EEAST and ORH Ltd. Consequently we consider this information to be commercially confidential between us and ORH Ltd. The Trust would seek exemption from providing this information under s.43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Releasing the amount paid to ORH Ltd could affect our relationship with them and be disadvantageous to their business. The Trust feels that it is extremely likely that releasing this information would provide competitors with an advantage over the Trust and would therefore prejudice the Trust’s commercial interests.
A separate piece of work, carried out by Lightfoot, was not in relation to the clinical capacity review and had very different terms of reference. This looked at timeliness standards, primarily in urban and semi-urban areas. This work did not look at the ambulance capacity required to meet the transportation requirements, or the related clinical standards. The costs to Lightfoot are unrelated to the clinical capacity review and were expended over three years from 2010 to 2013. This expenditure of £492k also included software fees, licences, training, development and a managed service plus some project work.
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.
The Trust is always looking at ways to improve our responses to Freedom of Information requests. If you wish to provide feedback to the Trust on how we have dealt with your request, please follow this link to complete a short survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PLJZ6C9
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require any further information.
Kind regards
FoI Officer
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust
We work to defend the right to FOI for everyone
Help us protect your right to hold public authorities to account. Donate and support our work.
Donate Now
Josh Smith left an annotation ()
Hi J Lowe,
I see EEAST have refused your request under s.43 of the Freedom of Information Act, citing commercial reasons.
Section 43 is what's called a "qualified exemption". This means EEAST should have applied a public interest test and weighed up whether any potential harm done by releasing the information would be outweighed by the benefit of the public knowing the information. There's no evidence that they've done this.
The official ICO guidance has more information, including a list of the points a public authority like EEAST should consider in the public interest (halfway down pg2):
http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/guid...
Given the high-profile (and literally life saving) work done by the ambulance trust, you could argue there is a very strong public interest in having this information available.
I'd strongly suggest you ask EEAST to perform an internal review of their decision, and consider complaining to the Information Commissioner's Office if they don't apply a public interest test properly.
Best wishes,
Josh Smith