London Ambulance Services - Essay Example

London Ambulance Service Unit The London Ambulance Services (LAS) is one of the reputable medical emergency providers throughout the world. It caters for emergency services in the City of London. It is a National Health Service (NHS) trust and has been able to hire up to 4500 employees who work in the various departments of the organization (London Ambulance Service 2014). They have a LAS operation center, which receives all the 999 calls and responds to them promptly. The calls are responded to in to for twenty-four hours and 365 days a year. The trust is based in five locations in London, each one is an headquarter. There are seventy ambulances, which serves the entire region of London. The trust is under the jurisdiction of the NHS. The NHS board meets after a period of two months to deliberate on the way forward for the trust. The board consists of a non-executive chairperson, five executive directors, and seven non-executive directors making thirteen board members. The LAS has a long history that dates way back in the 1960’s. The trust has weathered hard times to become one of the most reputable ambulance services in the world. Its formation was facilitated by the 1946 National Health services Act, which provided that ambulances were to be availed to any individual that required their services. Nine ambulance services merged in London and formed the LAS in 1965. Adjustments were made by the NHS, which resulted to the moving of LAS from the Local Government to South West Thames Regional Health Authority. It would later become a NHS trust in 1996 when the authority of South West Thames Regional Health Authority was eliminated (London Ambulance Service 2014). The operations of LAS cover a distance of up to 620 square miles. The region of operation ranges from Enfield to the north to Purley to the south while on the western is Heathrow and Upminster to the east. Seventy ambulance stations are spread across the entire region with four main headquarters at Waterloo road, Pocock Street, Loman street, Fielden House, and Bow. The trust provides an array of medical emergencies, which includes; provision of emergency responses, response to less serious calls, providing a clean environment for patient service, they do take patients for hospital appointments, they deal with major incidences, they help in finding hospital beds while making the experience of the patient to count. The services provided by London Ambulance Services stands out as a merit good. A merit good is one that the market underprovides and the forces therein do not affect the good greatly. The perception in the society is that such goods should be provided in bulk. Some of these goods are often assumed as if they are not important unless a need arises. Emergency services stand out to be a merit ‘good’. This is because there are many individuals that need the services and the players in the market are limited. The services offered by LAS have no influence from the market forces. Actually, the trust is self-regulating and has no influence whatsoever from other players in the provision of emergency services. There are no competitors since their work is efficient and thorough. The supply for such a ‘good’ is inelastic and there is always a growth in the demand characterized by the rising needs. LAS have been able to expand and offer customer services efficiently and appropriately. One major advantage is that it is public-owned and non-profit. Therefore, they are able to meet the demand without being influenced by the market forces. The structure of the company promotes its efficiency in the service delivery to the London community. The senior most employee of the trust is the chief executive officer. There are other four LA executive directors. All these, plus the non-executive chairperson and other seven non-executive directors comprise of the board, which meets at least every two months. The trust s departmentalized into various sectors, which promotes service delivery to the people. These include; the medical department, accident and emergency, technology, finance and business, human resources, patient transport services, and communications (London Ambulance Service 2014). Despite having five headquarters, operations are mainly controlled from the Waterloo Road headquarter. This s where the Emergency Operations Center is located. In addition, there is a back-up control room is East London while there is a special events control room that is located in East London. In case there are fatalities, coordination is done through three or four chains of command depending on the magnitude of the incidences. At the top most is the command that comes from the government, also called platinum control. Secondly, we have the gold control, which is a command that comes from the Emergency Operations Centre to ensure efficient service delivery and maximum utilization of resources. Thirdly, the silver control is based on the vicinity of the incident. Finally, the bronze control occurs at the place of incidence. There a number of responsibilities that are attached to the London Ambulance Services. Firstly, it is their responsibility to update the hospitals on the arrival of a patient. They ought to communicate to the hospital that they have a particular case of patient. This helps in the preparation of the medical personnel to handle the case. Secondly, at the scene of a given incidence, they develop a system that ensures that priorities are given to the treatment of the patients depending on the state of their conditions. Thirdly, they do treat, ensure that the patient is in a stable condition while providing them with care in order for them to endure the condition. Fourthly, they have a role of taking seriously injured patients to the hospitals when that is the best priority. Finally, they ensure that safety and a clean environment is given top priority. Depending on the nature of emergency, the LAS staff acts instantly. However, there are times when the demand is overwhelming, especially in winter due to complications among the old. In such cases, they give priorities to the most severe cases (NHS Choices 2012). Many dynamics have been able to confront LAS affecting its operations in one way or another. LAS rely on private ambulance services which facilitates its daily operations in order to ensure that it is capable of meeting its targets as well as the demand. Challenges related to limited staff as well as an exponential increase in demand made the trust to be overladen. In 2000, it received criticisms from various quarters for poor response. This made the ALA to be sued for negligence in the Kent v Griffiths case. They have since continued to demonstrate development making them be termed as one of the best 26 healthcare providers in England by the Care Quality Commission. They have been on their toes to increase the scope of their services to meet the ever increasing demand. In order to meet their operational needs, LAS has a charitable trust that raises funds for its operations. This has facilitated greatly their operations since they are able to meet their specific needs. In addition, they request for volunteers w oasis from time to time in the running of the operations. It is quite costly to run the trust; the total cost of running LAS is £299,021,000 (NHS Choices (2012). LAS have both positive and negative externalities just like most of the other organizations. Externalities results from the consequences of third party economic activities that are unrelated to the operations of the organization. These consequences can be either positive or negative. The positive externalities are beneficial to the society while the negative ones are detrimental to the society. A number of positive externalities that can be associated with LAS. The ability to save lives as well as providing medical services those results to healing is a positive externality since it benefits the community. Such can be quantified; they have been able to respond to 1,068,338 incidents, have taken up to 92% of patients to hospitals and made more than 177, 379 journeys. Negative externalities are less and are an indirect result of the operations. Such include pollution that results from the high fuel consumption. It is estimated that they may have used up to 4.2 million liters of fuel in the year 2012/2013 (London Ambulance Service 2014). Privatization of the LAS may not be the best solution in any way. The operations of the private sector are slightly different from the public sector. In the private sector, the control of the state is limited. There seems a huge desire to make profits as opposed to focusing on emergencies. LAS is best served while attached to the state because it is able to get support from there. In addition, it has the capacity to solicit funds from well-wishers who are able to support its initiatives. It would be much difficult if the company was private; there is likelihood of claims of resource misappropriation. Actually, charging for the services provided by the LAS would be a burden to most of the consumers. In addition, due to the need to maximize profits, there would be cutbacks such as retrenchment of staff. This would greatly affect the quality of services delivered while adding externalities that are more negative. The government’s support for LAS creates a problem, the free rider mentality. In conclusion, the London Ambulance Services is a distinguished emergency service provider. The government as well as well-wishers supports it. It has a well-defined operational structure that is comprised of various departments. The board meets after very two months to deliberate on improving LAS. Treatment is a pivotal positive externality that is provided by the trust. Dealing with such a merit ‘good’, LAS experiences an inelastic supply while the demand keeps on increasing. References London Ambulance Service (2014), Chronology. Retrieved from http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/about_us/who_we_are/our_story/chronology.aspx London Ambulance Service (2014), Providing an emergency response. Retrieved from http://www.londonambulance.nhs.uk/about_us/what_we_do/providing_an_emergency_respons.aspx NHS Choices (2012), London Ambulance Service NHS trust. Retrieved from https://www.nhs.uk/Services/Trusts/Overview/DefaultView.aspx?id=29236 Read More