View report page

187
Vehicles.
The number of vehicles authorised is as follows:—
*147 ambulances
20 ambulance omnibuses
3 staff cars
1 ambulance tender
Works.
A new emergency exit has been provided from the Brook ambulance
station, and improvements have been effected to the existing main entrance in
respect of additional fire precautionary works.
Brook ambulance
station.
Miscellaneous.
The charges and additional charges in respect of the hire by private persons
and public authorities of the Council's ambulances and ambulance-omnibuses have
been reviewed, and it has been decided to continue the existing charges, including
the flat rate of 12s. 6d. a journey for private removals within the county of London,
pending further review of the latter when the actual costs for the year 1933-34
have been ascertained.
Use of
ambulances
for private
hire—
charges.
During the year 1934, 95 charges for the hire of ambulances were remitted, the
total amount being £57 3s. 6d.
Ambulance
hire charges
—Remission
of fees.
The Council has had under consideration the question whether the free
ambulance facilities provided should be extended to include the conveyance of
non-urgent maternity cases to hospitals, etc., in the daytime. As a result, it has
been decided to extend the ambulance service as soon as the necessary facilities
shall have been made available, to include the conveyance, without charge, of
parturient women resident in London in non-urgent cases to hospitals and municipal
institutions between the hours of 8 a.m. and 11 p.m. These arrangements
will be subject to similar conditions to those at present applicable to such cases
removed between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8 a.m., viz.—(1) that the patient shall
have made arrangements for her admission to a hospital or municipal institution ;
(2) that she shall be accompanied by a doctor, nurse or female friend, and (3) that
she shall be wrapped in blankets ready for removal.
Conveyance
of maternity
cases.
Attention has been drawn to the growing number of cases in which ambulances
of the London Ambulance Service were called by telephone to what were said to be
street accidents, but where, on the arrival of the ambulance, no case could be traced.
Malicious
calls.
In consequence it was decided that legislation should be promoted in the
session of Parliament, 1935-36, to render liable to a penalty, any person who, without
proper justification, gives or is responsible for giving to the Council or to an
employee thereof, false information from which it may be inferred that it is necessary
or desirable for the Council to send an ambulance of the London Ambulance Service
to any place.
Pending the entering into of uniform reciprocal arrangements with all
authorities contiguous to the county of London, authority was given for the
making of arrangements of a temporary nature, in order to obviate the transfer of
patients from one ambulance to another at the County boundary. These arrangements
provide that persons incapacitated by reason of street accidents or sudden
illness, resident in the area of the adjoining out-county authority, who are removed
by the London Ambulance Service, and who desire to be taken to their homes, or
who are taken by the London Ambulance Service to hospitals in the county, and
after treatment, within less than twenty-four hours after reaching the hospital,
require to be removed to their homes, shall be conveyed by the London Ambulance
Service to their homes or to hospital within the area of the adjoining out-county
authority, and shall not be transferred from one ambulance to another at the county
boundary. Similarly, cases resident in the county of London and conveyed by
Reciprocal
arrangements
with outcounty
authorities
for the
transfer of
patients.
*To be increased to 153 on 1st April, 1935.