A RECOVERY plan produced by struggling East Midlands Ambulance Service to "transform" its poor performance will be submitted to regional health bosses today.
More than £880,000 will be spent on using private and voluntary ambulance services, such as St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, under the Better Patient Care plan.
Previous plans to close ambulance stations and replace them with two super-centres and 30 "community ambulance posts" have also been put temporarily on hold.
Five new managers have been appointed to oversee performance in each of the counties covered by the trust, while EMAS has set itself the target of breaking even by the end of the financial year to April – despite having bust its budget by £486,000 by November.
But Sue Noyes, the new chief executive at EMAS, said about £5 million had been reinvested back into the service to pay for the improvements in the plan. This money was originally taken from EMAS when it was penalised for missing targets.
The 67-page document will now be submitted to health groups and organisations which pay for the service EMAS provides for final approval.
Ms Noyes is the fourth person to hold the position of chief executive at EMAS in two-and-a-half years – an issue about which health bosses said in October it was concerned, along with the trust's response times to emergency calls and its patient safety.
But, in the plan, the trust describes how it has a "new and revitalised leadership" – with a new chief executive, chairman and director of operations. It said: "We have set ourselves targets because we want to deliver a transformed East Midlands Ambulance Service."
The plan has been released at the same time it emerged there has been a rise in staff turnover at EMAS. In a report, the trust said 117 paramedics had left so far this year, compared to 80 in previous years.
↧