Hi Emma,

Thank you for your FOI. Please can you clarify what you mean by ‘non-999
calls’ in your third question? Do you mean Healthcare Professional
Requests for transport? (i.e. when a doctor books an ambulance for a
patient to take them to hospital)

Just for clarity we do not run any Patient Transport Services any more
(i.e. the transport service used to take patients to outpatient
appointments) – we only take HCP calls if the patient requires an
escalation of care, i.e. they need to be taken to an Emergency Department
or specialist ward.

Kind regards,

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Direct Line 01392 261 603 | Web [1]www.swast.nhs.uk | E-Mail
[email address]

Trust Headquarters, Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter, EX2 7HY, TrustHQ

show quoted sections

Dear Emma

A PDF copy of our response is also attached – we are aware of a formatting
issue on the WDTK website which may affect the legibility of the tabled
response below.

I refer to our acknowledgement on  in respect of your request for
information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.  We
are able to provide the following information:

Information Trust response
requested
How many This information is available online on our website;
ambulances [1]https://www.swast.nhs.uk/p/private-ambul...
despatched
following  
999 calls
were The figures provided account for all Categories of incident that
operated by we respond to – we do not split this data into urgent/non-urgent
private definitions.
ambulance
firms in  
2018?
As explained in our email of 3/12/19 (attached) we do not have
  any Patient Transport Services contracts any more.

How many  
ambulances
despatched  
for non-999
calls were
operated by
private
ambulance
firms in
2018?

How much
did  South
Western
Ambulance
Service
spend on
private
ambulance
services in
2018?

 
Which, if The Trust uses Bristol Ambulance Service. Expenditure details are
any, available via the above link.  
private
ambulance
firms
received
money for
operation
of services
on behalf
of  South
Western
Ambulance
Service in
2018 and
how much
did each
firm
receive?

Please note that, under the Re-use of Public Sector Information
Regulations, if you wish to publish or otherwise use this information
besides for your own means, you will need to seek our permission to do so.

Please feel free to contact me if you require further clarification of the
information provided, or to discuss any aspect of the way in which we have
responded to your request. 

However, if you are dissatisfied with our response, you also have the
right to make use of the following complaints procedures:

In the first instance you may write to the Chief Executive of this Trust

Mr Ken Wenman

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Abbey Court

Eagle Way

Exeter  EX2 7HY

Mr Wenman will then either make arrangements for your complaint to be
reviewed and for the outcome to be communicated to you, or will convene a
panel of Trust Directors to consider an appeal against a decision to
withhold information.

If you are unhappy with the response to your complaint, or findings of the
Panel, you can contact the Information Commissioner at:

Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,                                 

Wilmslow,

Cheshire.  SK9 5AF

Tel: 01625 545 700

Fax: 01625 524 510

Kind regards

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

[2]cid:[email address]

Direct Line 01392 261 603 

Web [3]www.swast.nhs.uk

E-Mail [4][email address]

Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter EX2 7HY

References

Visible links
1. https://www.swast.nhs.uk/p/private-ambul...
3. http://www.swast.nhs.uk/
4. mailto:[email address]

Hi Emma,

As previously explained we do not split our calls into the two groups
‘emergency’ and ‘non-emergency’ – we have a range of response options for
HCP calls, and for 999 calls there are five triage categories that can be
applied. This may help explain the ‘999’ side of things;
[1]https://www.england.nhs.uk/urgent-emerge...

We have however asked our Information Management team whether they have
any way of breaking down the data into more detail which may be useful to
you. Once we receive a reply we will get back to you.

Kind regards,

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Direct Line 01392 261 603 | Web [2]www.swast.nhs.uk | E-Mail
[email address]

Trust Headquarters, Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter, EX2 7HY, TrustHQ

show quoted sections

Hi Emma,

As detailed below we do not separate our 999 calls into ‘emergency’ and
‘non-emergency’. We do however split them out by category (i.e. Cat 1, 2,
3, 4). Our IM team are in the process of seeing if they can run you an
dataset on incidents attended by at least one private resource, by
response category. They have produced the data but we are in the process
of checking it for accuracy. Please bear with us whilst this process is
ongoing, we will get back to you as soon as we can.  

Kind regards,

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Direct Line 01392 261 603 | Web [1]www.swast.nhs.uk | E-Mail
[email address]

Trust Headquarters, Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter, EX2 7HY, TrustHQ

show quoted sections

Dear Emma,

Further to my email yesterday I can confirm that the attached data has
been verified – please discard previous figures supplied.

Figures denote the number of incidents where at least one of the attending
resources was a private resource.

HCP/IFT denotes Healthcare Professional requests for transport (i.e. a
doctor requesting an ambulance). Doctors will advise on the level of
response required (typically between 60-240 minutes).  

As the Ambulance Service is an emergency service all of our incidents
attended are deemed to be emergency calls. However we do categorise and
prioritise incidents regarding depending on the severity of the symptoms
described. The current method of call categorisation is called the NHS
Ambulance Response Programme, which started on 25 October 2016. As such
data has been provided from this date onwards. Data prior to this date is
not comparable as the method for categorising calls was significantly
different.

More information about the ARP is available here:

[1]https://www.england.nhs.uk/urgent-emerge...

I sincerely hope the attached data meets with your requirements but please
do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information or
have any questions.

Kind regards,

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Direct Line 01392 261 603 | Web [2]www.swast.nhs.uk | E-Mail
[email address]

Trust Headquarters, Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter, EX2 7HY, TrustHQ

References

Visible links
1. https://www.england.nhs.uk/urgent-emerge...
2. http://www.swast.nhs.uk/

Hi Emma,

Our Information Management team have provided the below updated figures.
They have however advised that this methodology for extracting private
resource incidents is still not 100% accurate; they have to combine two
search metholodiges, by research type shown as well as ‘call sign’
information.

Although the figures are as close as we can get for the present moment we
would not recommend that they are used as the basis for any onward
research or publication.

[1]cid:Image15815057401280

Kind regards,

Clare Lunk | Assistant Information Governance Manager
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust

Direct Line 01392 261 603 | Web [2]www.swast.nhs.uk | E-Mail
[email address]

Trust Headquarters, Abbey Court, Eagle Way, Exeter, EX2 7HY, TrustHQ

References

Visible links
2. http://www.swast.nhs.uk/