News

The close day to day working relationship between Medical Services and the Hertfordshire Travellink Service was celebrated recently at a double presentation at the Lister Hospital, Stevenage.

Travellink has been developed through the Hertfordshire Integrated Transport Partnership (HITP) - a partnership of: Hertfordshire County Council and local Primary Care NHS Trusts, received our Crystal Clear Policy
Award for the best use of paper free technology in PTS bookings and reporting.

Advanced technology now connects both organisations so Travellink, who screen 60% of patients who access PTS in the area and download journeys directly into our booking system.

Judith Jackson, Director, Medical Services, is seen here presenting the award to Sue Brackley, one of the Travellink team, surrounded left to right by Kathy Ovens, Medical Services site supervisor at the Lister Hospital, Joe Sheehan, Managing Director, Medical Services, David Neilan, Community Transport Team Leader, Steve Gilbert, General Manager, Patient Access, East & North Herts NHS Trust, Toni Clark and Abbie Samuels, also from Travellink.

"The Travellink team has worked very hard to implement the new technology but in the end it has made our work and relationship with Medical Services more efficient and professional, and even more importantly provides an even better transport service for patients" said David.

Travellink and Medical Services



Earlier Travellink presented a bouquet of flowers to Yvette Summerton from Stevenage, the 100,000^th patient to book transport via the service.

Yvette with left to right David, Yvette Hodgson, Medical Services ACA and Stuart Pile, Executive Member for Highways and Transport, Hertfordshire County Council.

Medical Services is planning to expand its specialist courier business to the public and private healthcare sectors over the next 3 years.

"Our company's history can be traced back to a small courier business more than 20 years ago and while our specialist courier services have continued to develop steadily, the company's main growth has come from patient transport services. We now see an opportunity to start to redress the balance" said Kevin Shire, Director of Business Development.

Andrew Smith, Courier Sales Executive, has been recruited to lead the sales drive; he has joined as the company starts two important courier contracts won earlier in the year:

The development of Medical Services' first 'Centre of Excellence' ambulance station at Bow in East London is nearly complete. It will include a new control centre, training facilities, stores and vehicle servicing facility (photograph).

The new 'Centres of Excellence' integrate operation and management functions to improve client services on a regional basis; two others are being developed in Alperton, West London and in Luton, Beds.

Medical Services' new intermediate care ambulance transfer service (ICATS) for hospitals in central London was featured in a recent online television broadcast to an audience of NHS executives.

Broadcast on HealthExec Tv, it included interviews with Cliff Hammond-Read, Deputy Director of Environment at Homerton Hospital and Kevin Shire, Medical Services' Director of Business Development.

To watch the broadcast go to www.medicalservicesuk.com

Medical Services has chosen the leading edge technology to control the maintenance and operating costs of its fleet of vehicles operating from the 'centres of excellence' being developed at Bow, Alperton and Luton.

It is called Fleetman, a powerful integrated software package which has been developed by Cleric Computer Services for vehicle workshops.

The package includes numerous features to aid the planning and scheduling of routine and breakdown maintenance and the tracking and analysis of all vehicle downtime.

"In today's budget pressures within the NHS using this technology will enable us to effectively control our own costs and therefore continue to be cost-competitive for our clients" said Joe Sheehan, Medical Services' managing director.

As part of our ongoing commitment to training and development station managers have undertaken major incident training (more news next month on this) and 14 PTS crews have completed bariatric specific courses; a further 21 have received refresher training while 5 members of staff have completed the FPOS course. Congratulations to all !

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