Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust ("YAS") is the NHS ambulance service covering most of Yorkshire in England. It is one of ten NHS Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services as part of the National Health Service it receives direct government funding for its role.
It was formed on 1 July 2006 following the mergers of the former West Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service ("WYMAS"), South Yorkshire Ambulance Service ("SYAS") and some services from the Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service ("TENYAS").
History
Yorkshire Ambulance Service was formed on 1 July 2006, around the same time as many of the ambulance services in England merged with neighbouring services to become closer in line with the government regions, in this case excluding parts of Lincolnshire in the Yorkshire and the Humber region. This followed the 2005 publication of the Taking Healthcare to the Patient: Transforming NHS Ambulance Services report by Peter Bradley.
West Yorkshire Metropolitan
WYMAS was formed in 1974, covering the then new metropolitan county of West Yorkshire and the Craven district of North Yorkshire. It brought together some of the individual city ambulance services which existed across the area and in 1992, it became an NHS trust, providing 24-hour emergency and healthcare services to more than 2.1million people across the region. WYMAS had 21 ambulance stations within its operating area.
Tees, East and North Yorkshire
TENYAS was formed on 1 April 1999, as a merger of the former Cleveland, North Yorkshire ambulance services and the northern part of Humberside Ambulance Services which covered the East Riding of Yorkshire. It served the urban areas of Middlesbrough, York and Hull along with the rural areas of the Yorkshire Dales and Yorkshire Wolds.
South Yorkshire
SYAS was formed in 1974 as the South Yorkshire Metropolitan Ambulance Service covering the then new metropolitan county of South Yorkshire. On 1 April 1992, it became an NHS trust and served over 1.4million people in an area of over .
Services
YAS serves a population of five million people and employs over 4,500 staff and supported by over 1,000 volunteers. On an average year, YAS will respond to 700,000 emergency calls and conduct one million patient transport journeys.
YAS's main roles are to: receive 999 calls in two Emergency Operations Centres (EOC), based in Wakefield and York, and deploy the most appropriate response to meet patients' needs respond to 999 calls by getting medical help to patients who have serious or life-threatening injuries or illnesses as quickly as possible provide the NHS 111 urgent medical help and advice line in Yorkshire and the Humber as well as Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire take eligible patients to and from their hospital appointments with our non-emergency patient transport service
Emergency response
In 2013–14, YAS staff received 795,750 emergency and urgent calls, an average of over 2,180 calls a day. YAS responded to a total of 708,883 incidents by either a vehicle arriving on scene or by telephone advice. Of these, 267,716 were categorised as immediately life-threatening.
Like other English ambulance trusts, YAS has experienced year-on-year growth in activity since it was established in 2006; overall response activity was up by 2% from 2012–13 to 2013–14.
YAS delivered the national emergency response target (75% of immediately life-threatening calls were reached in eightminutes and 95% of these calls within 19minutes) for the third consecutive year in 2013–14. This was only achieved by YAS downgrading a large number of calls to a less serious category, they are due to be investigated by the CQC for this.
NHS 111
YAS runs the NHS 111 service in Yorkshire and the Humber, Bassetlaw, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The service took its one millionth call in February 2014 and is one of the highest performing NHS 111 services in England. Up to the end of 2013–14, the service responded to 1,100,599 calls, 94.9% of which were answered within 60seconds (the national target is 95%).
Patient transport service
YAS patient transport service (PTS) is the largest ambulance provider of non-emergency transport in Yorkshire and the Humber. In 2013–14, YAS PTS undertook 886,312 non-emergency journeys.
Transport is provided for people who are unable to use public or other transport due to their medical condition. This includes those: attending hospital outpatient clinics and community-based care being admitted to or discharged from hospital needing life-saving treatment such as chemotherapy or renal dialysis