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A comprehensive design study into how patient and ambulance staff safety can be improved through design, and how the ambulance service can move towards standardisation in vehicle design and adapt to future service demands. A research partnership with Loughborough University. The study was commissioned by the NHS National Patient Safety Agency with additional support and funding from the Helen Hamlyn Trust and the Ambulance Service Association.
The NHS Ambulance Service is undergoing rapid change and modernisation, in part prompted by the 2005 DoH report Taking Healthcare to the Patient, which set out a new strategic direction for emergency healthcare an the Ambulance Service. Impetus was added to this by data from the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), indicating that existing designs of vehicles and equipment were sometimes detrimental to the safety of patients and ambulance staff. These factors combined to provide this opportunity for a service-wide appraisal of ambulance design and equipment.
Stakeholder consultation was made central to this study through workshops involving patients and every level of staff within the ambulance system, from senior management and government advisors, through fleet managers to paramedics and other service personnel.
The workshops explored design and treatment factors in existing ambulances, to ascertain where and how patient and ambulance staff safety can be improved. Key issues with existing equipment were translated into design challenges, and these were contextualised into a set of performance requirements for improvement, modularisation and innovation, to offer a framework for standardisation within the service.
A report Design for patient safety: Future ambulances was published in spring 2007, along with the supporting research and evidence-base for the recommendations. It report sets out a 10 year plus vision, to support standardisation and improvement of vehicle design; ensure equipment reliability and compatibility; and subsequently meet the evolving demands on NHS.
The goal of the work was to inform discussion and decision-making by NHS Ambulance Trusts. Currently the CEOs of the restructured NHS Ambulance Trusts are working with the report to inform a process of design standardisation based on its recommendations. It has subsequently led to a new research project ‘SmartPods’ to reconfigure urgent healthcare delivery.
