Somebody needs to correct me if I’m wrong, but I could swear that the East Midlands Ambulance Service were touting the idea of trust status around the bazaars sometime ago. I said it was a flawed proposal then and I’ll say the same again now. The job of an ambulance service is pretty well understood, even by me. Answer the phone, then go quickly and safely to wherever somebody needs help. Once there, give immediate medical assistance and if needed, take the sick person to a hospital. So even if the EMAS is a poorly performing service, how will becoming a trust improve things?
When the suits came and made their presentation to the district council, I was particularly concerned to read that they intended to elbow their way into the first aid training market, using ambulance service paramedics. I’ve no problem with the principle, everybody should know first aid, but currently it’s a limited market and one that gives organisations such The St John’s Ambulance Brigade a valuable source of income. Putting the East Midlands Ambulance Service (Trust?) in to direct competition with such charities, doesn’t seem like a particularly worthy goal to me and I told them so.
Also, reversing the turkeys not voting for Christmas analogy, the chief executive is bound to support this proposal, as it’s a racing certainty that trust status will bring a significant pay rise. if not immediately, almost certainly within 12 months.
The glossy brochure they handout the first time around, didn’t really give any clues as to how the award of trust status would increase the number of ambulances, or improve response times and I doubt anything has changed.
Roger Gambba-Jones 
You clearly don’t know enough about the subject to post a view; EMAS is already an NHS Trust and is seeking to become an NHS Foundation Trust. This gives advantages such as being able to compete for future business and carry a surplus that can be reinvested for example, but also requires them to be able to demonstrate a soundand sustainable business model as opposed to this being reliant on the annual commssioning process. Like any change within the NHS there are fors and againsts but perhaps research the subject first then make an informed decision.
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Many thanks for your informative response. Whilst I accept fully your criticism of my ill-informed comments, I will defend to the death my right to make them, this is after all what blogging is all about – the good, the bad and in my case, the ugly.
Okay, so we are playing with words trust becomes foundation trust, did becoming a trust instead of just a plain old service make much difference previously? Well according to the response time figures not really.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-17963966
I also refuse to be hoodwinked by the application of fancy business related terminology to what should be a very straightforward service provision. Compete for future business; what will they do, go out and run over people to increase their customer base? A facile comment I know, but this attempt to at commercialisation of the service is bothing than smoke and mirrors and is only likely to increasem the amount of suits employed to run ‘the business’.
So will adding foundation to their title make a difference? As I have already said, I doubt it.
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