“It’s a challenging job, but I go home knowing I’ve made a difference”
When patients make requests for use of our patient transport service, many teams work to ensure that each patient’s needs are met and that they get to and from their appointments safely and on-time.
One of the teams working behind the scenes is our dispatch team, who are responsible for making sure each crew can get to each patient throughout their shift, oftentimes managing last-minute changes to appointments, care plans, and types of transport needed.
Working over seven desks in our emergency operations centre in Newcastle, each dispatcher manages jobs spanning from the top of Berwick on the Scottish Borders to Carlin How who neighbour our colleagues at Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Overall, the team oversees over 2,500 journeys per day to the regions GP practices, urgent care centres, and hospitals. It is no small job, and the team is always busy, but they provide a crucial role in the patient journey.
Claire Glister trained to become a scheduled care dispatch supervisor. Sitting with Claire in dispatch, we had the opportunity to ask her about her career and why she chose to join the ambulance service.
“Patient transport is the backbone of the service,” she says, “we all work hard, and the work we do helps the crews out there who are responding to emergencies.
“I’ve had the chance to go to my daughter’s school and talk about what we do, and being able to talk to the kids about my job was lovely. It’s a side of the service that people don’t see, but dispatch is vital in making sure that the ambulance you request, emergency or scheduled, gets to you.”
Looking at Claire’s screen in front of her, you can see what jobs she must manage for the day. Most of the jobs are already allocated by our team of planners who looked at the jobs booked the day before, but it is up to Claire and her colleagues to make sure those jobs are not only actioned on-time, but that the crews are looked after and get their breaks.
“You do a lot of juggling in this role because things change. Appointments are cancelled, crews show up to a patient home and the type of transport they need has changed, and then you have our patients with additional needs such as travelling alone because they’re vulnerable to illnesses that they could catch from other patients.
“Our planning team does an incredible job of assigning patients to crews, but life in healthcare throws curveballs and it’s up to us to make sure that no curveball is too much to get the patient the care that they need.
“We also have a responsibility to our crews to make sure that they’re getting the breaks they need, and support for any patients who may be more challenging to respond to. All this needs to be factored in when I’m making changes to jobs; it’s not just about who is closest to a patient, but who has the right skills and equipment to make that patients journey the most comfortable.”
The impact that patient transport service crews make on the lives of their patients even gets back to control. Claire shares: “A lot of our patients are lonely, and our crews are the only people they speak to each week. When patients pass away, it’s sad. The crews notice when they stop picking up regulars, and it’s part of our job to protect that patient’s privacy so we can’t tell them why. It’s one of the hard parts of the job because you know that the crews genuinely care.”
“It’s a challenging job, but I go home knowing I’ve made a difference. I know that sounds… you know, but it’s true. It’s something I’m very proud of and proud to be a part of, just knowing that someone was able to get the care they needed because of the work of me and my team. We’re a small part of a big jigsaw, but we’re important.”
Find out more about our dispatch roles by visiting: https://www.neas.nhs.uk/join-team-neas/careers/patient-transport-service