The necessity for the provision of resilient communications proved to be a major influence for the National Ambulance Service when they made their decision to make the move to Tetra.
For the NAS, improving patient care is crucial and a rapid response- critical.
On roll-out, a performance improvement action plan had been put in place in order to improve response times and patient outcome. These outcomes include monitoring and improving processes around call-taking allocation and dispatching, appropriate targeting of emergency vehicles and improving emergency department turn-around times.
The development of a single national ambulance control centre was a key priority for the health service, in line with international best practice
The National Ambulance Service can now communicate with all other supporting state agencies from Mazin to Mizen Head specifically for aeromedical, search and rescue with the Irish Aer Corps and the Irish Coast Guard.
Control & Performance Manager at the National Ambulance Service is Pat McCreanor. He outlies the benefits Tetra has brought to the NAS.
‘From the first time that we tested Tetra Communications, I have to say that everybody within the National Ambulance Service was impressed by the clarity of the voice and also the ability it had to communicate’.
Pat McCreanor, National Ambulance Service
‘For us to be able to talk to people at the scene allows you to have almost a pair of eyes looking at what’s happening and we wouldn’t have been able to do this in the old analog world, you wouldn’t have been able to do it in Cork and in Donegal at the same time whereas today we can do it in Cork and Donegal at the same time’.
In 2015, the National Ambulance Service reconfigured its control centres from up to eleven regional control centres down into one system over two sites, one in Tallaght, South County Dublin and one in Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal, and Tetra allows the NAS to do this and to operate the system.
All of the country is now live, all of the ambulances are now live on Tetra and they operate on a 24-hour basis and will continue to operate on a 24-hour basis.
Mr McCreanor concludes ‘We have interoperability with people who are providing other services to us. This has enriched our ability it provides better hospital and pre-hospital emergency care services to the public of whom we serve. I have never come across a situation where Tetra has let us down, so Tetra for me fulfils what we require. It’s fantastic from our perspective’.
Images: (Tetra Communications)
