View report page

Buildings—A new accident ambulance station was brought into operation at Battersea
Rise in May and was officially opened by the Chairman of the Health Committee on
1 November. The station accommodates three ambulances engaged on normal emergency
and general work and is also used as a training station (see paragraph on ' Training').
Five of the six general ambulance stations are accommodated in buildings erected over
60 years ago and a programme is in progress for modernising these buildings and improving
the staff amenities. As the first stage in this programme, improvements to the administrative
and operative staff accommodation were carried out during the year at the Eastern
ambulance station.
Abnormal weather conditions—Severe weather conditions were experienced at both the
beginning and the end of the year. There was severe frost in January and February, causing
many difficulties for the accident section; 611 casualties were removed on 1 January and
633 on 26 February, approximately double the normal figures.
Dense fog was experienced during the three days 4 to 6 December and this again placed
a severe strain on the Service; many crews willingly worked exceptionally long hours,
driver/attendants had to lead their ambulances on occasions and 288 fog flares were used.
In this period 1,243 emergency calls were answered. Although the number of general
service removals fell because of the cancellation of out-patient attendances, there was a
considerable increase in the number of general cases taken to hospital suffering from
respiratory diseases and 206 cylinders of oxygen were used for the relief of bronchial and
other patients.
Rail strikes—On 29 January there was a strike on the London Underground railways.
This resulted in exceptionally heavy traffic in central London and great difficulty was
experienced in getting patients to and from hospital. Hospital authorities co-operated
by cancelling non-essential journeys but nevertheless patients were subjected to unprecedented
delays; for example, one ambulance took an hour to travel from Guy's hospital
to Headquarters in Waterloo Road—a distance of little more than a mile.
There was a strike on the main line railways on 3 October and, in anticipation of traffic
chaos in central London, hospitals were asked to reduce their requests for ambulance
transport as much as possible. In fact, little difficulty was experienced on this occasion
although, of course, journeys involving rail transport were cancelled.
Many of the admissions, discharges and treatments not carried out because of strikes
and weather conditions were merely postponed and the carry-over work imposed some
strain on the resources of the Service.
Radio control—Radio control was extended to the vehicles operating from the Eastern
ambulance station.
Hospital casualty services—The Platt report envisaged the provision of a limited number
of accident centres providing comprehensive facilities for the treatment of all types of
casualties and the closure to ambulance-borne casualties of other hospitals. The first step
in implementing this scheme in London was taken in May, when Guy's hospital was
designated as the accident centre for an area of south-east London.
Staff—The service is under the supervision of an Officer-in-Charge and is staffed by 33
administrative and clerical staff, 77 ambulance control clerks and 880 uniformed supervisory
and operative staff.
Training—The Service training scheme was re-organised during this year to provide
for new entrants four weeks theoretical and practical training, including first aid, and, in
addition, at least four weeks operational training at an accident ambulance station. At
this operational training station, eight trainee crews on rotary shifts man three accidentequipped,
radio-controlled ambulances. A personal instructor, with the rank of Station
69