Service to create 100 jobs after £6.5m investment
One hundred new staff will be recruited by the North East Ambulance Service after a £6.5million investment.
Chiefs say the drive is to meet new national response time standards and improve services to patients.
An additional £9million worth of efficiencies and productivity savings have also been agreed with support from the regional health system to improve response times set by the Department of Health and Social Care in late 2017.
Alan Foster, lead for the integrated care system in the North East NHS, said: “This new money will be invested in more staff and new vehicles to meet the new response time standards across the region.”
Mr Foster is leading plans for integrating care and developing partnerships across the North East, which he argues will ensure that the performance of the ambulance service supports the whole health system across the North East.
He added: “The ambulance service can be likened to being the arteries of the health system that joins together all of the different parts of our regional health economy.
“This investment into the ambulance service will ensure that they will be able to meet the vision for the NHS set out in its five-year strategy.”
The increased investment and efficiencies will support the recruitment of about 50 paramedics and a further 50 emergency care assistants and also see an increase in the number of double-crewed ambulances, some of which will replace some non-paramedic emergency vehicles and rapid response cars.