New ambulance hub to be built in Rubery (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

New ambulance hub to be built in Rubery

2:00pm Friday 19th October 2012 in Local

A NEW ambulance hub, one of two Birmingham centres, is being built in Rubery it has been announced.

The purpose-built preparation and maintenance hub is to be built at Hollymoor Point, Hollymoor Way, in the village.

West Midlands Ambulance Service’s hubs are part of radical plans to overhaul and improve the service to residents by adopting the Make Ready system.

The two hubs - the other is being is being built at a location in Erdington - as well as 31 new community ambulance stations are replacing Birmingham’s nine current traditional ambulance stations, which are being sold.

Each hub has a team of dedicated Ambulance Fleet Assistants (AFAs) who will clean, stock and prepare ambulances in readiness for the clinical staff.

The AFAs will deal with any fleet issues during the course of an ambulance crew’s shift, allowing the crew to continue with their vital work looking after patients.

Ambulances prepared at the Rubery hub will disperse to the new stations, from where they will respond to 999 calls.

It is hoped the system will cut emergency response times, as the stations are low-cost, low-maintenance facilities, so there can be a number of them.

The Make Ready system was introduced by Staffordshire Ambulance Service in 1997, and it resulted in it becoming one of the highest performing ambulance services in the country, with some of the fastest response times.

Assistant chief ambulance officer Mark Gough said: “The move to Make Ready brings many advantages to patients: response times are improved, many staff are trained to a higher clinical standard, the amount of time clinical staff are available to see patients is increased, there is a reduction in waste, increasing efficiency and channelling additional resources into frontline services.”