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providing accommodation for the area officers of the Hospital Car Service at the
general ambulance stations, thus establishing direct liaison with the superintendents at
those stations. With a view to integrating the two services still more closely and
utilizing their combined resources with greater efficiency and less duplication of effort,
all requests for transport since 1 October, 1957, have been made, in the first instance,
through the Council's own control organisation.
Vehicles—By 1948 many of the Council's ambulance vehicles had been in use for many
years, since replacement during the war was not practicable. About 40 per cent. of the
fleet of vehicles was under repair at any one time. The purchase of replacements was an
urgent necessity and during the four years 1948-51, 291 new vehicles were brought into
commission.
Replacement programmes authorised by the Council in recent years have had regard
to the increasing demand for the conveyance of out-patients and the consequent need
for a higher proportion of vehicles capable of being used for the dual purpose of
accommodating either patients able to walk and sit or those who are recumbent.

* 25 adaptable for sitting-cases.
During 1956-58 a prototype ambulance body was designed, in conjunction with a
modified commercial vehicle chassis, and produced in the mechanical works division
of the Council's supplies department to the special requirements of the London
Ambulance Service. Ambulances of this type will serve as a replacement for those
purchased in 1949 and subsequent years as they reach the end of their economic life
(further details are available on page 80).
Radio-telephony—A pilot scheme of radio-telephony control was introduced in 1956
by equipping six ambulances and a staff car for two-way radio communication and by
installing at headquarters control apparatus connected by land line with a main
transmitter at Hampstead. Even this limited experiment showed that radio control
offered scope for improvement in the co-ordination, deployment and flexibility of the
resources of the service, that it was essential as a means of controlling operations at
a major incident with maximum efficiency, and that it enabled a much closer liaison to
be established between crews and Headquarters. In 1958 the Council authorised an
extension of the system to include up to a maximum of 41 radio controlled vehicles
and during the year the opportunity was taken also to equip 20 vehicles at the North
Western general ambulance station with radio in addition to supplementing the radio
network of the accident section.
Premises—The Council's approved proposals for carrying out its functions as an
ambulance authority under the National Health Service Act, 1946, contemplated the
building of three new accident ambulance stations at Hampstead, Mottingham and
Wandsworth; the building of a permanent ambulance station to replace a temporary
structure in West Smithfield; the transfer of Headquarters station from temporary
premises in Lambeth Palace Road to permanent premises; the re-accommodation of the
Brook general ambulance station, which was housed in temporary premises following
enemy action; and the extension and improvement of the Eastern, South Eastern, Brook