Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has begun the national roll out of a new in-cab navigation application as part of the Ambulance Radio Programme (ARP).
Named the National Mobilisation Application (NMA), the new system is underpinned by Ordnance Survey (OS) digital mapping and has been developed with mobile data company Terrafix.
The ARP has been set up by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to deliver critical technological system improvements for ambulance services.
The application is claimed to deliver the most up-to-date and detailed mapping of Britain’s rural and urban areas including highly accurate road and addressing information.
DHSC contracted Terrafix through its Public Sector Geospatial Agreement licence, which enables it to integrate OS addressing, roads and mapping products such as OS Zoomstack, OS MasterMap Highways Network and AddressBase Plus into the NMA. This brings the navigation into line with the same OS datasets in every NHS computer aided dispatch system used in emergency control rooms.
Yorkshire Ambulance Service has recently begun to use the application and is rolling it out across its fleet of over 650 ambulances and rapid response vehicles. This will be followed by a national roll out, said an OS spokesperson.
First implementation
Its chief information officer, Simon Marsh, said: “YAS is proud to be the first to implement the new solution into our ambulance and rapid response vehicle fleet.
“Having access to accurate and up-to-date mapping is essential to all the emergency services, and with ambulances it can make all the difference to our patient care and response times through improved navigation."
“Ordnance Survey mapping is a key feature of the new solution. We now have up-to-date, accurate mapping data being streamed to the vehicles, ensuring that we are always navigating and working with the best and most trusted information.
“It also means that vehicles no longer have to be taken off the road to download the latest maps and data.”
The Ambulance Radio Programme team has been tasked with replacing the existing mobile communication systems with new digital services for all of the ambulance trusts in England. It involves two streams, for a mobile data vehicle solution and a control room solution.
