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The vehicles and their personnel are accommodated in garages, schools, or other
premises where the vehicles can be conveniently parked and the staff can find
shelter, rest room, and feeding facilities. Many of the premises earmarked for this
purpose before the war had to be replaced, as opportunity arose, by more suitable
accommodation, and a standard has now been attained which is generally satisfactory
from the point of view of operational convenience and comfort and health of the
personnel.
In order to meet war-time needs, the headquarters staff was supplemented by a
number of units, including two divisional officers and their assistants, who act as
peripatetic inspectors of the service and exercise general supervision, under the
officer-in-charge, of the service. The accident section of the service, comprising
16 stations, is in charge of the headquarters superintendent. There are also six
general ambulance stations, each under the control of a superintendent, from which
is operated the fleet of peace-time vehicles used for hospital removals, etc., and
which form the local administrative centres for the control of the auxiliary service.
A small body of station officers of the regular service, under the direction of the
superintendent at each general section station, visits the auxiliary stations and
exercises supervision in detailed matters of operation and administration.
At each auxiliary station an auxiliary station officer is in charge, and is
assisted by a deputy and by shift leaders.
The arrangements for paying the large auxiliary staff are in the hands of visiting
pay officers whose duties are supervised and co-ordinated by a senior officer of the
hospital finance division of the department.
In the period from September, 1939, to August, 1940, the auxiliary personnel of
the service received training in their duties by means of lectures and demonstrations
in first-aid and anti-gas measures, and exercises in the operation of vehicles,
including co-operation with other civil defence services, notably the stretcher parties
which are controlled by the metropolitan borough councils.
The service under conditions of intensive aerial warfare has functioned
satisfactorily. The staff have responded with alacrity and courage to the calls
made upon them. The service has operated without delay, in spite of many
difficulties imposed by damage to roads, telephones, stations and vehicles; the
joint working with other services has proceeded in the main without hitch.
Casualties have been sustained both by regular and auxiliary personnel, and damage
has been done to stations and vehicles.
On the outbreak of war the operational control of all ambulances during periods
of "alert" was brought under the direction of the London civil defence region
(operating through group and borough controls). The group ambulance officers
are Council officials and form a useful link between the ambulance service and the
regional organisation. While this system works satisfactorily, so far as the movement
of auxiliary vehicles for air-raid purposes is concerned, it resulted in serious
delay in the handling of normal or "peace-time" patients (removals to and from
hospitals, etc.); and, after representations had been made to the London regional
authorities, the control of the peace-time ambulances was resumed by the Council
so far as the general section (i.e., non-accident) of the service is concerned. This
has resulted in a speeding-up of the service, and removed the delays which were
occurring.
SCHOOL MEDICAL SERVICE
Government evacuation scheme
Broadly speaking, the Government's schemes during 1940 provided for the
evacuation of children in three groups: (a) a "trickle" every few days of school
children unaccompanied by an adult relative; (b) a mass evacuation carried out over
six days in June of 61,000 "unaccompanied" school children consequent upon
the events on the Continent; and (c) an evacuation in the last months of the year