Job fears over ambulance leadership shake-up

The new overarching organisation has been named the South Central and South East Ambulance Group

Two ambulance services in England will combine their senior leadership.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) and South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb) said they would adopt a shared leadership model.

Both NHS foundation trusts will "continue to operate independently" but will have a single chief executive and chairperson, and will collaborate on "digital innovation, clinical best practice, and workforce development", they said.

The trusts plan to implement the change in phases between 2025 and 2027.

NHS England's south east regional director Anne Eden said the "group model", the first of its kind in England, was "a real opportunity to improve care and access for our patients while offering better value for money".

The new, overarching organisation has been named the South Central and South East Ambulance Group.

The services together cover Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire.

Geoffrey Bowden, chairman of patients watchdog Healthwatch Brighton and Hove, said people would "probably lose their jobs in this so-called streamlining effort".

"We will be monitoring how this beds in and whether response times suffer as a result of it," he said.

Roy Lilley, a health analyst and former chief of an NHS trust, said the change was "a sensible, pragmatic move" but was "a merger in all but name".

"This is a way of producing the savings, merging back office and cutting costs without going through the palaver and the cost and the statutory requirements of a merger," he said.

SCAS chief executive David Eltringham said the model "gives us the ability to respond more consistently, use our resources more effectively, and make sure patients receive the same high standard of care wherever they live".

Simon Weldon, Secamb's chief executive, said the change would make services "fit for the future".