Three ambulance services are to join forces to deliver savings through initiatives including joint procurement.
South East Coast (SECAmb), South Western (SWAST) and West Midlands ambulance services expect to jointly procure goods such as equipment and fuel.
The services said there were no plans to merge services or restructure existing operations. However, they said they would work collaboratively to share best practice for the benefit of patients and staff and would aim to improve resilience between the organisations for planned events and major incidents.
The work will draw upon existing benchmarking work by the National Audit Office investigation into ambulance services and a report from Lord Carter into efficiency and productivity.
SECAmb chair, David Astley added: “I am confident that, by working closely in partnership with our colleagues from SWAST and WMAS, we will all be able to benefit from sharing best practice and making efficiencies through joint procurement to drive real improvements for our staff and our patients.”
SWAST chairman Tony Fox added: “This is a fantastic opportunity to capitalise on the best the three ambulance services have to offer, use the significant purchasing power we collectively have and learn from the experience and share best practice between alliance partners to improve the quality of the service to our patients.”
Between them the ambulance services handle more than 2.5m 999 calls every year.
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