Seeing as it SECAmb is the ambulance service that covers Knaphill and Woking, we thought you might like to understand a bit more about it. Here is an article from our recent magazine, giving you a little more background…

South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SECAmb) is the ambulance service covering Surrey, Sussex and Kent as well as parts of North East Hampshire.

It responds to 999 calls from the public, urgent calls from healthcare professionals and provides NHS 111 services across its region. It was formed on 1 July 2006 following the merger of Kent, Surrey and Sussex ambulance trusts and its one of 10 ambulance services operating in England. The service works across a diverse geographical area of 3,600 square miles with a residential population of 4.5 million which includes densely populated urban areas, sparsely populated rural areas and some of the busiest stretches of motorway in the country. SECAmb has over 3,000 staff, of which some 90 percent are operational staff – those caring for patients either face to face, or over the phone at its emergency operations centres in Crawley and Coxheath where we receive 999 calls.

On 22 November 2017, SECAmb implemented new national ambulance response standards, known as the ‘Ambulance Response Programme’. When a 999 call is received it is prioritized depending on the information provided by the caller. There are four categories of call, the response times for the most serious calls, category 1 is as follows: Category 1, Response: – For calls with immediately life-threatening and time critical injuries and illnesses. These will be responded to in a mean average time of seven minutes and at least 9 out of 10 times before 15 minutes.

SECAmb is a NHS Foundation Trust and as such invites the public to have a say in how it runs its service. It’s free to become a member of SECAmb, and members will receive a newsletter with potentially life-saving health tips, invitations to ambulance service events, and information about any changes we’re planning to our service. To become a member, fill in an online form here.