This afternoon we were pleased to hold our Annual General Meeting via Microsoft Teams Live Events to give you an opportunity to hear about our work during 2019/2020.
The event was recorded and the video (which is just under 27 minutes) is now available to view.
The recording includes the introduction from our Chairman Pauline Tagg MBE, and Chief Executive Richard Henderson; updates from our Director of Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Nichola Bramhall, Deputy Director of Finance Pen Andersen, and Director of Strategy and Transformation Will Legge; and a question and answer session.
You can access the recording via our YouTube channel.
We were delighted that several attendees felt they could ask questions during the live Question and Answer section of the AGM. For ease, we have included a transcript of the answers to those questions below:
Questions from AGM
Question: Are there any plans to further grow or supplement the CFR role to greater assist the trust and our patients?
Answer: The short answer to that one is yes. We rely heavily on the use of volunteers within the NHS, and indeed within the ambulance service. I'm really pleased to see the number of schemes that we have across the East Midlands and our response continues to grow.
So not only are we looking to expand further in the number of schemes and responders that we have responding in their communities, but also our Medical Director Leon Roberts is looking at the skill sets of some of the response schemes and what we can do to further support our responders.
We have a wealth of the people who bring expertise from their daily lives to the ambulance service and that’s something we will continue to expand on.
We’re really proud of what everyone does day in, day out so thank you very much.
Question: What is the best way of proposing new ideas to yourselves for initiatives which could become extremely fruitful and beneficial to all involved?
Answer: It's a good question and really fits in with the quality improvement strategy that I've just talked about. We love to hear new ideas and we'll absolutely give those due consideration.
There's a number of ways that you can do that. I'm happy for people either to email me directly or my deputy, Tracy Hamilton, or you can use our Patient Advice and Liaison Services email address to provide any ideas, and we can consider those.
Question: Have you got the resources you need to meet the challenges of winter and the ongoing COVID period?
Answer: We know the NHS is absolutely crucial to our daily lives, we need to make sure that we do everything we possibly can to have enough and the appropriate capacity to respond to our patients.
As an ambulance service we delivered a very high level of service to many people even during the early days of the COVID period. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone involved in that response and who went above and beyond.
As we go into the next period, we have to make sure that we have sufficient resources on the frontline. There are lots of additional activities taking place behind the scenes to not only make sure our resourcing and staff is fit for purpose and robust, but also what we can do with other partners, for example, other members of the health system such as the acute trusts and our CCGs. This is to ensure the demand that we face is as low as possible and appropriate as possible.
There are many patients who can actually be treated in more appropriate ways than by the 999 system. But equally, we need to protect the 999 service so that it’s there for critically ill patients in their time of need.
As it stands at the moment, we have robust plans in place for the winter period.
Question: What other professionals do you have in your organisation?
Answer: We have a wide range of professionals working in the organisation. I'm glad that we have this question, because I think sometimes when people think about the ambulance service, they just think about paramedics.
While paramedics are obviously a large part of our workforce, we're also supplemented by a number of other healthcare professionals.
We have nurses, midwives, mental health nurses, pharmacists, doctors, as well as our paramedics, ambulance technicians, emergency care assistants, in addition, to the specialist staff we have working in our enabling and support functions that were mentioned earlier. This includes patient experience specialists, health and safety specialists, safeguarding and infection control specialists. And I think the real key to that is that it's really important that we have a really good multi- disciplinary professional team so that we can provide excellent care.