East Midlands ambulance reorganisation - an attack on rural employment

The UK's East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) is planning to change where they base ambulances. Out go small community bases, in come fewer, bigger, hubs. Staff would sign on and off there, pick up fully-serviced vehicles, then head out to strategic locations (which might have a building for comfort facilities, but might not) so they are in the right place when a 999 call comes in.

All very neat if you are a hierarchical commander (and the job titles and uniforms of the service gives the feeling that this is the culture at work here). But lousy if you care about rural employment, or the lot of those who signed up for a career in the ambulance service based on the idea that they would be based near where they live.

I am fine with the idea of losing unsuitable local buildings and basing the vehicles in the best logistical locations - a very good idea, in fact. The problem is with the idea that staff should travel to the few new hubs at the start and end of each shift.

The plan appears to involve many staff driving a LOT further at the start and end of their shifts. Even with transition arrangements in place, I bet that means that within a few years, existing staff will be driving in their own time, at their own cost, to reach the more centralised bases. That is not fair on people who took a lifetime-career job based on the then-current expectation of where their shifts would start and end.

And in time, this will mean a migration of ambulance service jobs from rural areas to the urban areas where the new Hubs are going to be.  Driving 45 minutes from home to a Hub at one's own expense and time is unattractive enough, but if one then picks up a vehicle and drives back to a Standby point much nearer to home, it will seem even more painful. As planned, staff distant from the Hubs will find the job much less attractive than those who live nearby. And the rural areas of the UK have little enough employment already.

Couldn't the Ambulance Service have been more imaginative about where staff start and end shifts? Sure, it is much neater to have everyone troop in to a Hub each day, but it's not good for staff or the country. They could set a requirement that each vehicle came back to its Hub every 12 hours (say) -  and then choose which vehicle goes to which call to make this possible with the minumum of "dead mileage". At the point when the vehicle and crew make it back to a Hub, the staff check manifests on the noticeboard or whatever else the Commander feels they need to do every day, and then swap with a fully-serviced vehicle and go off again.

That way, the Ambulance Service can have their staff start and end shifts at Community Ambulance Posts or even at Standby posts, reducing commuting mileage and maintaining the geographic diversity of their workforce.

I've suggested this to them as part of their consultation, but haven't had any sort of response. I doubt that the need to protect rural job opportunities or the wish to look after the interests of their staff will be enough to overcome the centralising tendencies of those most comfortable with a nice simple way of commanding their troops.