Published: 22/09/2005, Volume II5, No. 5967 Page 13
Readers will be unsurprised to hear ambulance trusts' top brass are finding it hard to separate strategic issues from the re-organisation affecting their trusts, commissioners and performance managers.
One chief executive told HSJ that anxiety has reigned since national ambulance advisor Peter Bradley's report in June. One of the exasperating consequences of the uncertainty over the future of ambulance trusts, our source said, has been a quenching of the entrepreneurial spirit springing up among parts of the 999 crew.
It seems ambulance trusts that have been increasing their outof-hours role are licking their lips at the prospects offered by Commissioning a Patient-led NHS. With PCTs ordered out of the provider game, opportunity knocks.
'We interco-ordinate a lot with minor injury units that are currently run by PCTs. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the new emergency care organisations take them on as PCTs pull out, ' said one chief executive.
However, this 'blue-skies thinking' has been hindered by uncertainty about their own futures.
'Trusts are keen to get into providing more home diagnostic services and specialist advice on long-term conditions, ' said a southern ambulance chief executive.
'This would support policy impetus to increase healthcare outside hospitals, but We are being held back by delays on the decision on trusts' future structure.' Another said they are hoping the government will approve a move to rebrand as part of the restructuring: 'I am hopeful the new organisations will not be called X Ambulance NHS trust. We are creating organisations to do new and interesting things, and we want those organisations to look and behave and feel differently, to reflect the wider emergency care management we will be doing.' Reconfiguration proposals were revealed this week by NHS chief executive Sir Nigel Crisp and national ambulance advisor Peter Bradley, who is also London Ambulance Service trust chief executive (see this week's news story about their own mergers). But some share PCTs' concerns. 'Why such a rush, ' wondered one chair. 'If what's proposed was professionally planned and grounded in logic it would be fine.'
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