THE ambulance service for Nottinghamshire has hatched plans to spend £26 million buying new vehicles to improve its "under-invested" fleet.
The proposal - which will be discussed at the East Midlands Ambulance Service board meeting on Tuesday - would see bosses buying 294 ambulances and response cars over the next four years.
The move would see EMAS running an extra 28 vehicles in total by expanding its fleet from 522 to 550 - with a host of the older vehicles also replaced.
Ambulance service bosses say the investment will increase vehicle availability, help to hit performance targets and improve support provided to front line staff.
Lee Goddard is Unison representative for EMAS. He said: "It is a significant investment. Any new vehicles on is going to be a positive impact because the older vehicles are breaking down a lot.
"Theres a big impact on staff because its frustrating that they go on jobs but have to call the vehicle off road because of a break down. They join the service to help the public but spend too much time off the road. It is definitely a good move."
The spending comes after the service was criticised by health watchdog the Care Quality Commission in April with inspectors having a number of concerns.
The CQC revealed EMAS was not meeting four of six "essential standards" after an unannounced two-week inspection.
In a report, it said some improvements have been made since a previous visit in March 2013.
But it added that the service is not on track to meet response targets for life-threatening calls and there were times when not enough ambulances were available.
Among the findings were:
People cannot be assured they would receive care in a timely and effective manner.
Vehicle checklists were not regularly completed by staff.
Vehicles were not available in sufficient quantities to ensure the safety of people that used the service.
The trust did not always have enough suitably qualified and experienced staff to meet the needs of people who used the service in a timely way.
EMAS has implemented an action plan to tackle the problems as part of a project called Being the Best that also responds to concerns raised by health chiefs when the service was called to crisis talks in October last year.
EMAS chief executive Sue Noyes said: "Our fleet services and operational management teams have reviewed current county-based resources and intend to replace vehicles based on age profile, reliability and running costs.
"At our board meeting we review the Fleet Replacement Programme Business Case for the period 2015 to 2019."
EMAS bosses have found £19 million to fund the project and will apply for a loan of £7 million from national health chiefs.
At current nearly 50 per cent of the service's vehicles are more than five years old. After the investment EMAS bosses say ambulances would not be used past seven years of age and fast response vehicles would only be allowed to get to five-years-old.
Councillor John Allin is vice chair of the health scrutiny board at Nottinghamshire County Council. He said: "It should help a great deal because they will be modern and up-to-date for the future.
"If they are updating the fleet that's good - a lot of it is ancient. It's about time."
