The North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (NEAS) is an

NHS foundation trust A foundation trust is a semi-autonomous organisational unit within the National Health Service in England. They have a degree of independence from the Department of Health and Social Care (and, until the abolition of SHAs in 2013, their local s ...

responsible for providing

NHS The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

ambulance services in

North East England North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authorit ...

. Headquartered in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

, NEAS provides emergency medical services to the

metropolitan boroughs A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts within metropolit ...

Gateshead Gateshead () is a large town in northern England. It is on the River Tyne's southern bank, opposite Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle to which it is joined by seven bridges. The town contains the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, Millennium Bridge, Sage ...

North Tyneside North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend. North Tyneside is bordered ...

South Tyneside South Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, North East England. It is bordered by all four other boroughs in Tyne and Wear – Gateshead to the west, Sunderland in the south, North Tyneside to the no ...

and

City of Sunderland The City of Sunderland () is a metropolitan borough with city status in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, North East England. It is named after its largest settlement, Sunderland, spanning a far larger area, including nearby towns i ...

; the

ceremonial counties The counties and areas for the purposes of the lieutenancies, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England and informally known as ceremonial counties, are areas of England to which lords-lieutenant are appointed. Legally, the areas i ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

and

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

; and the area of

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

commonly known as

Teesside Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Historically a hub for heavy manu ...

. NEAS was formed on 1 July 2006, following the merger of the existing North East Ambulance Service with the Tees division of the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (TENYAS). Northumbria Ambulance Service and County Durham Ambulance Service had previously merged on 1 April 199

NEAS is one of ten Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom, Ambulance Trusts providing England with

emergency medical service Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. ...

s, receiving direct government funding for its role. NEAS also provides

patient transport Patient transport is a service that transfers patients to and from medical facilities in non-emergency situations. In emergency situations, patients are transported by the emergency medical services. Non-emergency patient transport is sometimes ...

services (PTS), or non-emergency services, to patients in the area.

Performance

NEAS was one of four trusts in the country to receive a "good" rating in the 2006/7

Healthcare Commission The Healthcare Commission was a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department of Health of the United Kingdom. It was set up to promote and drive improvement in the quality of health care and public health in England and Wales. It aimed ...

Healthcheck report. This was the highest rating achieved by any ambulance service for provision of care. Between April and October 2013, the service recorded 10,072 "incidents" in which handovers to hospital accident and emergency departments had taken longer than 30minutes and 499 which took longer than one hour resulting in penalty fines of approximately £250,000 for the service. In 2018, the trust said it would need to recruit 100 more paramedics in order to meet new ambulance performance targets. The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in England was that delayed ambulance response times became a "continuing theme due to the unprecedented demand the service is currently experiencing”. In response to repeated complaints about patient harm the trust reported that “on each occasion demand outweighed available resources at the time these patients required an emergency ambulance” and that the board “can take assurance that in each of these cases no missed opportunities were found to send an ambulance sooner”. In January 2022 call handlers were told they should consider asking patients with suspected strokes and heart attacks to be transported by friends or family because ambulance response times were under such pressure.

CQC performance rating

In its last inspection of the service in October 2018, the

Care Quality Commission The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health and Social Care of the United Kingdom. It was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. I ...

(CQC) gave the following ratings on a scale of outstanding (the service is performing exceptionally well), good (the service is performing well and meeting our expectations), requires improvement (the service isn't performing as well as it should) and inadequate (the service is performing badly):

Services provided

* 999 emergency service * Hazardous Area Response Team * NHS 111 service * Patient Transport Service *Durham Urgent Care Transport (DUCT)

Locations and dispatch desk areas

The main trust HQ is currently based at Bernicia House on Newburn Riverside,

. There are three control rooms currently operating for NEAS, one at the Newcastle upon Tyne HQ at Bernicia House in

Newburn Newburn is a semi rural parish, former electoral ward and former urban district in western Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. Situated on the North bank of the River Tyne, it is built rising up the valley from the river. It is situated ...

, one at Russell House in

Hebburn Hebburn is a town in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It governed under the borough of South Tyneside; formerly governed under the county of Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the south ...

and one at Winter House in

Billingham Billingham is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. The settlement had previously formed i ...

. 999 emergency calls and NHS 111 urgent care calls are answered by call takers at all three sites. North East Ambulance Service is split into three divisions or dispatch desk areas. These are the NEAS ambulance stations including the dispatch desk they would come under in the control room. There are several stations across the North East run jointly with the local fire services such as

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, formerly known as the Tyne and Wear Metropolitan Fire Brigade, is the fire and rescue service (FRS) for the metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle Upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sund ...

and

County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service covering an area of , for the unitary authority areas of County Durham and Darlington. The service area borders with Cleveland Fire Brigade, Nort ...

Popular culture

NEAS is to feature as the host service of the ninth and tenth seasons of the BBC TV series ''

Ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to medi ...

'', with filming taking place until April 2022.

References

External links

*
North East Ambulance Service on the NHS website

Inspection reports
from the

{{Authority control NHS ambulance services trusts Organisations based in Northumberland NHS foundation trusts Health in Northumberland Health in County Durham Ambulance services in England