The army and firefighters are preparing to support the ambulance teams during the “very busy” winter UK News

The military will be called upon to support the Eastern England ambulance service as bosses prepare for a “very busy” winter spell.

Essex Fire and Rescue is also expected to be available to offer support, with the ambulance service adding that it will not dispatch ambulances to elective patients.

The EST, along with the rest of the NHS, is expecting an extremely busy winter.

In its report to the Essex County Council Health Policy and Oversight Committee, the service outlined its plans for the coming months and how it intends to cope with the increased demand over the years. winter months.

It also offers overtime and other incentives to have more ambulances on the road and “puts in place plans to build on the support of partners within the military and fire departments and emergency services to help our emergency and non-emergency services ”.

The report adds that the service “where appropriate, will not send ambulances to non-emergency patients and will direct them to more appropriate services.”

Currently, the wards manage around 10 percent of its patients through Hear and Treat, where self-care advice is given over the phone.

It also refers about 1,500 patients per week to other sources of help and uses other channels to encourage people to use other services where they can, such as 111 and 111 online, pharmacies and their general practitioner.

An EEAST report to the Essex Patient Experience Review Committee released on August 23 will be considered by the Health Policy and Review Committee on September 2.

In conclusion, he said: “Operational demand and pressure persist, with mitigation actions being taken in accordance with our escalation plans.

“We have seen an increase in demand over the summer, which has been experienced by other ambulance services and the NHS in general. Our staff stepped in to offer additional shifts and we worked closely with the NHS and other colleagues to identify the causes of ambulance delays and find innovative ways to deal with them.

“Our work to take the next step in our improvement journey has started, it focuses on a solid foundation in five key areas. These underpin how we can move forward in a sustainable way. We are now preparing our plans for the next winter challenge.