Northern Ireland Ambulance Service
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The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is the ambulance service that serves the whole of Northern Ireland. As with other ambulance services in the United Kingdom, it does not charge its patients directly for its services, but instead receives funding through general taxation. It responds to medical emergencies in Northern Ireland with the 300-plus ambulance vehicles at its disposal. Its fleet includes mini-buses, ambulance officers' cars, support vehicles, RRVs and some accident and emergency ambulances.
The Service employs approximately 1,100 staff based across 57 stations & sub-stations, 2 Control Centres and a Regional Training Centre. It responds to approximately 140,000 emergency (999) calls per year with a combination of traditional emergency ambulances with two crew members, and rapid response vehicles (RRVs) crewed by a single paramedic.
In addition to the emergency service, NIAS has a fleet of Patient Care Service vehicles which are used for more routine patient transport to/from hospital, inter-hospital patient transfers and increasingly for GP[clarification needed] urgent admissions to hospital. Within the Patient Care Service there are both single-crewed 'sitting case' (minibus) vehicles as well as double-crewed 'intermediate care vehicles' (ICV) which carry a stretcher.
History
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was formed on 1 April 1995 through the amalgamation of its 4 predecessors. Its full title is the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust.
See also
- Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
- National Health Service
- List of Government departments and agencies in Northern Ireland
- HSE National Ambulance Service - Ambulance service in the Republic of Ireland
