East of England Ambulance Service welcomes visitors from Oz

Men from 'down under' were special visitors to the East of England Ambulance Service to take away ideas and inspiration from the UK's ambulance services.

Chief executive Hayden Newton welcomed service director Peter King and technical service director Ashley Morris from the St John Ambulance, Western Australia, and spent a day at the Bedford office as
part of their visit to several trusts throughout the United Kingdom.

The aim of their visit was to gain a broader understanding of how ambulance services operate around the world. The Western Australia service covers the largest land mass in the world with around 2.5m square

kilometres. As a result, it has 3,500 volunteers in the rural and remote areas who respond to emergencies in their areas, many of which are hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital.

During the day, Peter and Ashley were shown how the Trust performs on a daily basis, and they were given presentations on technology and systems, use of clinical leadership in operations centres, the community paramedic model development and the ambulance fleet. Talking about his visit, Peter said: "First and foremost both Ashley and I have been very impressed in everything we have seen during our visit.

Many things have been learnt and we wish to thank everyone who made our stay in the East of England Ambulance Service a memorable one. "We are looking to take away useful ideas and see if we can implement them in our own service which will vastly improve our performance."

Hayden added: "We have received several enquiries from international ambulance services who were very keen to see how we operate and how we have dramatically improved our performance."