Ambulance transport boost for rural residents
Hospital patients living in rural areas have been handed a boost by a new ambulance transport programme.
The East Midlands Ambulance Service will be running Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) for Lincolnshire from July 1 next year.
This came after a successful bid to NHS Lincolnshire CCG, who awarded the service a ten year contract.
The scheme aims to provide transport for eligible patients so that they can get to appointments for chemotherapy, kidney dialysis, physiotherapy and mental health.
Joy Weldin, head of Patient Transport Services at EMAS, believes this will be pivotal for patients who live in rural areas such as ours.
She said: “It’s really important, because everybody in rural areas needs treatment as well as anybody else.
“Being part of East Midlands Ambulance Service, we’ve got lots of ambulance stations as well at various sites so we can support patients in rural areas.
“Working closely on those sites will enable us to transport those patients quickly to their appointments.”
The service has experience of providing NEPTS in the East Midlands, doing so Derbyshire since 2016 and Northamptonshire since 2019.
Ms Weldin says the work done in the former, which also houses a large number of rural residents, means staff can hit the ground running in Lincolnshire.
“We’ve got lots of experience, we’ve got lots of knowledge within our team,” she said
“We’re absolutely confident that we can build on what has already been provided.”
She also added that it will provide a reliable alternative to public transport, which can be unreliable in South Holland.
Richard Henderson, the ambulance service’s Chief Executive, is pleased.
He said: “We have an excellent track record of providing non-emergency transport services to patients in Derbyshire and Northamptonshire, and we already have a good understanding of the patients and road networks of Lincolnshire where we provide emergency ambulance care.
“We are therefore very pleased to have been selected to extend our services in Lincolnshire to provide patient transport and non-emergency control room support to our patients, and look forward to working with both NHS Lincolnshire CCG and the current provider TASL over the coming year to make this as seamless a transition as possible.”