Operations
The Trust headquarters is at Jenner House, Chippenham, Wiltshire.
The Trust has one main call handling control room ("EOC — Emergency Operations Centre") and two "dispatch centres". The main control room, the EOC at Acuma House, Almondsbury, has been recognised as a Centre of Excellence for emergency call handling and dispatch for 2006, 2007 and 2008 by the company that supplies their computer software.
The EOC in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, is also the hub for the Gloucestershire out-of-hours "urgent care" service. The emergency control centre for Wiltshire is located in the WES building in Devizes, as the Great Western Ambulance Service in Wiltshire is part of Wiltshire Emergency Services project.
In common with all UK ambulance services, the control room triages and categorises 999 calls into three categories — A, B, and C. Category A are potentially life-threatening emergencies requiring an immediate response. Category B are potentially serious but not life-threatening emergencies. Category C require do not require an emergency response and are relayed to NHS Direct, specially trained paramedics or nurses for over-the-phone advice, GP services or Emergency Care Practitioners(ECP).
Below are the performance targets the government has set out of ambulance trusts to meet.
- to reach 75% of immediately life-threatening emergencies (category A) within 8 minutes
- to reach 95% of non-life-threatening emergencies (category B) within 19 minutes
- where a doctor requests an ambulance for a patient under the Doctors' Urgent Standard, to deliver 95% of patients within 1, 2 or 4 hour targets, as requested by the health care professional.
Read more about this topic: Great Western Ambulance Service
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—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
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