Three new Primary Response Vehicles are now in use by the Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) with three more Secondary Response Vehicles on the way before Christmas.
The new Volkswagen T6 Transporters are designed to enable crews to go from one type of job to another –such as a water job to an at-height job - without changing vehicles or needing to go back to base.
Each £55,000 vehicle has everything crews need to treat trauma patients, get to a patient in a water situation or at height, where an area is contaminated with chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear materials.
Sid Murphy, HART and Special Operations Manager, said: “Our new Primary Response Vehicles allow us to provide a more flexible and appropriate response to incidents.
“They are smaller, quicker and more agile and our HART crews are already making the most of them across the whole of the East Midlands.”
Three 4x4 Secondary Response Mercedes Benz Sprinters will also be delivered to HART in December to support these primary vehicles.
These will include remote cameras and a drone to allow crews to look for patients in a contaminated or hostile environment before entering the area.
A further HART welfare vehicle with a toilet and shower on board will join the fleet in 2018 and will be for the use of all EMAS resources at the scene of an incident.