North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is looking to “the road ahead” in its latest trust strategy, recognising the increasing role that tech, data, and AI will play in shaping urgent and emergency care delivery.
Introducing the strategy, trust chair Stuart Corbridge and chief executive Kevin Scollay note: “The decade ahead will be shaped by uncertainty. Changes in national policy, health and care systems, population need, workforce expectations and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, will continue to reshape how care is accessed, coordinated and delivered.”
Over the next decade, the Emergency Operations Centre will increasingly be used as the front door to urgent and emergency care, the trust states, and as demand becomes more complex, the ability to assess need, coordinate care, and make clinical decisions at the earliest opportunity will be central.
“Doing more of the same is not a viable option,” the trust reports. “As demand continues to grow and evolve, relying on models designed for a different context would place increasing pressure on patients, colleagues and partners. NEAS must therefore adapt by design rather than by circumstance.”
With this in mind, it expects digital, data, and AI to shape care delivery, including by supporting clinical judgment, improving patient experience, and helping services respond more effectively to growing demand. It further commits to making it easier for staff to do their jobs by “getting the basics right” in terms of equipment, digital systems and workplaces, reducing avoidable pressures created by poor systems or workarounds.
A focus will be placed on testing, evaluating, and adopting innovations proven to improve outcomes and experience, NEAS outlines, with data, tech, and research being used to support better decision-making and care. Moving forward, support functions and infrastructure will be designed around the needs of patients and colleagues, and system reliance on the ambulance service as a “default safety net for unmet system demand” will be challenged, with proactive contribution to the design of alternatives that better meet patient need.
Challenges have been raised by partners about the impact of “risk averse” triage and limited alternatives on escalating demand, the trust shares, with ambulance crews managing work they are not designed or resourced to do. A strategic response looks to develop a clinically led operating model that is explicit about the service’s role, and that indicates gaps where system alternatives should be strengthened.
Partner and community insight shows that only a third of patients expect to be taken to hospital when calling 999, NEAS continues, and partners and patients support helping people stay at home when it leads to the right care.
Wider trend: Future of urgent and emergency care
East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust has outlined progress, emerging opportunities, and next steps from its digital collaboration agreement with West Midlands Ambulance Service. A baseline of contracts including costs, expiry dates, and scope, has been developed, and opportunities for alignment will be assessed on a case-by-case basis for areas such as shared specifications and potential joint procurements. In particular, areas highlighted as opportunities for shared capacity or aligned ways of working include DSPT assurance and evidence management, cyber security operations and incident response coordination, and operational communications services. The board shares that WMAS is considering a reprocurement of key operational systems such as EPR and computer aided dispatch.
East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust has shared the latest on its new EPR, confirming a contract has been signed with provider Terrafix to replace its current system over the next year. The contract with its current EPR supplier is due to end in 2027, it continues, which reportedly provided an opportunity to review the market to find a modern platform capable of supporting future clinical practice, interoperability, and service improvement. The trust outlines hopes for the new system around reducing duplication and improving data capture, incorporating digital clinical decision support tools, and helping with handovers in making sure all relevant information is on hand for those involved in a patient’s care.
North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) NHS Trust is planning an upcoming procurement for a unified CAD and EPR platform, with a total estimated value of £19.3 million. The trust has issued a market notice ahead of a planned February 2027 tender, indicating requirements for the platform around minimising duplication, improving clinical safety, and ensuring real-time information flow between control room operations and care settings. The platform should be capable of managing the full patient and incident lifecycle, according to the trust, “from call intake through each care scenario including hear and treat, dispatch, see and treat and see and convey, clinical handover and post event reporting”.
