The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) is the

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 ...

service for

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,052,000 in 2011. It is the ...

. It is one of ten 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, and is part of the

National Health Service 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 " ...

, receiving direct government funding for its role. NWAS was formed on 1 July 2006, following the merger of four previous services (Cumbria Ambulance Service; Lancashire Ambulance Service; Cheshire and Mersey Ambulance Service; and Greater Manchester Ambulance Service) as part of Health Minister Lord Warner's plans to combine ambulance services. Based in

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th cen ...

, the trust provides services to almost 7million people in

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirra ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. ...

, and the North Western fringes of the High Peak district of

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the nort ...

(covering the towns of

Glossop Glossop is a market town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is located east of Manchester, north-west of Sheffield and north of the county town, Matlock. Glossop lies near Derbyshire's borders with Cheshire, Greater Manche ...

and Hadfield) in an area of . NWAS provides emergency ambulance response via the 999 system, as well as operating the

NHS 111 111 is a free-to-call single non-emergency number medical helpline operating in England, Scotland and parts of Wales. The 111 phone service has replaced the various non-geographic 0845 rate numbers and is part of each country's National Health ...

advice service for North West England. They also operate non-emergency patient transport services (PTS) for part of the region, and in 2013/2014 carried out 1.2million such journeys. Since 2016, the PTS in Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral has instead been carried out by

West Midlands Ambulance Service The West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust (WMAS) is responsible for providing NHS ambulance services within the West Midlands region of England. It is one of ten ambulance trusts providing England with emergency medic ...

Fleet

NWAS utilise a mixed fleet of emergency and patient transport ambulances. The trust uses rapid response cars, and since 2017 have begun using

BMW i3 The BMW i3 is a B-segment, high-roof hatchback manufactured and marketed by BMW with an electric powertrain using rear-wheel drive via a single-speed transmission and an underfloor lithium-ion battery pack and an optional range-extending pe ...

electric cars In Central Manchester, some paramedics respond on specially converted bicycles.

Locations and structure

The trust currently operates from 104

ambulance station An ambulance station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of ambulance vehicles and their medical equipment, as well as working and living space for their staff. Ambulance stations have facilities for maintaining ambulance vehicles ...

s across the North West. The most northerly station is at

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from xcb, Caer Luel) is a city that lies within the Northern English county of Cumbria, south of the Scottish border at the confluence of the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril. It is the administrative centre of the Cit ...

, and the furthest south is at

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston, ...

. It also maintains three Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs) for the handling of

999 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Books * ''999'' (anthology) or ''999 ...

calls and dispatch of emergency ambulances. * Parkway (Manchester Area) * Estuary Point (Cheshire and Mersey Area) – formerly Elm House * Broughton (Cumbria and Lancashire Area) In 2017, NWAS signed an agreement to purchase a new EOC and area office for £2.9million at Liverpool International Business Park next to

Liverpool John Lennon Airport Liverpool John Lennon Airport is an international airport in Liverpool, England, on the estuary of the River Mersey south-east of Liverpool city centre. Scheduled domestic, European, North African and Middle Eastern services are operated f ...

, this building has been converted and services have now migrated from the Anfield site. Over recent years, the trust has combined many of their older ambulance stations into purpose-built facilities shared with other emergency services, including Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, Lancashire Fire and Rescue and

Greater Manchester Police Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 me ...

Performance

NWAS was the first ambulance trust to be inspected by 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), in August 2014. The CQC found the trust provided safe and effective services which were well-led and with a clear focus on quality but it was criticised for taking too many callers to hospital and for sending ambulances when other responses would have been more appropriate. The trust was subsequently inspected in 2018 and was found to have improved with a rating of "Good"

CQC performance rating

In its last inspection of the service in February 2020, the

(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):

References

External links

*
Inspection reports
from the