EEAST staff hit the headlines

Colleagues from across EEAST have been hitting the headlines over the summer – and making the nation smile at the same time.

Dave Tamarro and Joe Cartwright went viral in July when we shared hilarious outtakes from a video they were making to mark international paramedic’s day on 8 July. As well as attracting hundreds of thousands of views across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, the duo also appeared on Claudia Winkleman’s Radio 2 programme and were the most watched video on the BBC News website.

This was followed by the story of emergency medical technician Jeremy Williams (pictured on the right with colleague Shaun Whittington), which captured the media spotlight in August.

Jeremy was treating a woman in cardiac arrest when he had a heart attack. His teammates then worked effectively to manage both casualties – with both going on to make full recoveries.

If you haven’t already seen the video of our laughing paramedics, you can catch it here.

Jeremy’s story is available in full on our website.

Award-winning wellbeing garden opens

A garden which was awarded a silver medal at last year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been gifted to Chelmsford Ambulance Station as a space for staff to enjoy and unwind.

Named ‘60o East – A Garden Between Continents’, the garden was donated by Sean Butler of garden design and landscape company, Cube 1994 Ltd.

Sean said: “I wanted to thank the staff at EEAST for the care and compassion they provided to my late mother. This seemed the perfect way as it will have an ongoing positive impact.

“We have been designing gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show for some years now and it has been a pleasure for our team to rebuild the garden at Chelmsford Ambulance Station which was challenging and really tested all of our ingenuity.”  

To read the full story, click here.

Developing our clinical strategy

We have been developing a clinical strategy for urgent and emergency care which sets out our plan for improving care and addressing challenges within the region. This future clinical model has been created through extensive engagement and is underpinned by an agreed set of ten design principles, as illustrated above. 

At the start of this month, we held our first partnership engagement event, which gave 50 attendees the chance to explore how the clinical strategy would work in practice and the development of multidisciplinary approaches and teams. 

Partners focused on the use of data and real time data to enable better responsiveness, and recommended that we should update our directory of services and map alternative pathways in each locality to support appropriate conveyances. We also need to support our crews to safely discharge patients more readily to community partners.

Partners appreciated being given the opportunity to engage at the design stage of the strategy and were able to offer insights and tangible ways that we can work together to provide responsive care to our patients. Plans are in place for further engagement throughout the autumn.

Could you ‘outrun an ambulance’?

Generous supporters have raised nearly £3,750 for EEAST’s charity by successfully outrunning an ambulance – and there’s still time to join them.

A total of 32 people have already completed the virtual challenge by conquering the mileage an ambulance covers on an average shift by running, walking, swimming, cycling or riding anything self-propelled. 

The money they have raised is being used to improve break areas for staff at our stations and provide welfare wagons to support crews at hospitals during periods of operational pressure. 

There is still time to sign up for the challenge, which runs until 31 December. More information is available here.