Transport to Hospital: Design for Patient and Staff Safety

In 2005 the UK Department of Health set out a vision for the provision of future ambulance services with an increasing range of quality mobile healthcare services for patients with urgent and emergency care needs. This paper describes a scoping study funded by the National Patient Safety Agency and Ambulance Service Association to investigate the short and longer term requirements of future emergency ambulances. Four stakeholder workshops were held to explore the wishes, concerns and preferences of the clinicians, operational staff and manufacturers about the future provision of ambulance services, and problems and possible solutions relating to ambulance design and use. Incident reports relating to ambulance design and use were reviewed from two national and international databases. Nine design codes were identified: access/egress; space and layout; securing people and equipment in transit; communication; security, violence and aggression; hygiene; equipment; vehicle engineering; patient experience. These topics are being used by the National Fleet Strategy Group to develop a specification for future emergency ambulances.