“IAA challenge to protect members’ interests”

The main challenge for the Independent Ambulance Association up to and beyond the General Election in 2015 is to keep pace with the changing healthcare landscape and ensure that  members’ interests are protected and their voice is heard by policymakers, says David Davis, the IAA’s Director.

In just 2 years the IAA has “already staked a claim to have a direct say in the future shape of emergency and urgent care services but that needs to be converted in having a definitive role in delivering patient services”, he says in his annual report to members.

Davis adds: “We must continue to build a meaningful relationship with the NHS ambulance trusts and extend that to hospitals, commissioners and politicians so that they have a clear understanding of the vital contribution independent ambulances already make to the nation’s healthcare economy and the resources and skills we can deliver in the future.

“With the CQC compliance inspection regime will continue to become more robust, members will have to manage their business even more professionally and deliver exemplary patient services.

“Like it or not, we have to recognize there are those who, against all the evidence, still regard private ambulance services as secondary to those delivered by the public sector, therefore we have to work that much harder and to exceed all the regularly performance criteria.” The IAA is committed to campaign for regulation of ambulance companies to be extended from England to other parts of the United Kingdom and as a stepping stone it has appointed a new category of associate membership to independent services in Scotland and Northern Ireland and later this year in Wales.

Davis added:  “These are early days for the IAA’s expansion ambitions but our participation in the EU campaign against changes in the public contract procurement laws was a clear reminder that we will need to pay as much attention to the politicians in the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the bureaucrats in EU Commission in Brussels as we do to MPs in Westminster.

To protect our interests at home from their activities, we will in time have to consider establishing strong ties with fellow ambulance organisations in Scandinavia, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.”