Thorcom in the Ambulance Service

Thorcom is a leading supplier of wireless data communications systems to the UK Ambulance sector, with a range of products and solutions specifically tailored to allow Trusts to perform at their optimum level.

UK Ambulance Trusts are set national performance targets, in particular to attend 75% of emergency calls within 8 minutes. It is not possible for an Ambulance Trust to build an ambulance station on every road junction, so they rely on dynamic working practices, supported by mobile data technology to achieve the target results they need.



Pioneering PMR

Thorcom pioneered the use of wide-area PMR network technology for use in the Ambulance sector in 1995, with the first user going live in 1996. This was the South East Wales Ambulance Trust (SEWAT – now part of Welsh Ambulance), who are still using the service in 2006. The technology matured into the Thorcom MDS700 System, and was subsequently rolled out to many more ambulance services in the UK.



Vehicle Location

The first benefit a Trust gains when using a Thorcom solution is that of Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL). This allows a Trust to see on a map the precise location of each of its assets, allowing the most appropriate resource to be mobilised without delay. In order to maximise the chances of an ambulance being able to reach an incident within the target time, vehicles are sent to strategic locations – AVL is a key service to allow the controllers to keep track of their fleet. Thorcom’s AVL systems use an internal Trimble Naviagtion to ascertain their precise location, and this is sent over the wireless network using an intelligent event triggers to optimise the network usage. See the Thorcom AVL guide for further information AVL Overview.



Mobilisation

The 8-minute target timer starts when the Ambulance service answers the 999 call, taking the callers details and transferring this information via voice radio to the vehicle crew takes valuable seconds. Using a mobile data solution, this process can be reduced to 2-3 seconds by combining an auto-address identification (from the caller ID) with an automatic mobilisation message transfer to the Thorcom computer screen on the ambulance dashboard.



Transferring to TETRA

The Ambulance service in England have recently procured radio bearer services from Airwave <link to Airwave news>, who run a secure TETRA network in the UK. Thorcom has already implemented two mobile data and AVL solutions on this network, the first being Hereford and Worcester Ambulance, the other being Mersey Regional Ambulance.



Further links

	Mersey Regional Ambulance
	Hereford and Worcester Ambulance
	More Focus on Thorcom