By Louise Todd
UK NAVIGATOR was once again a resounding success, with more than 100 people from countries including England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Greece attending the conference held Sept. 22–24 in Bristol, England.
The reception held prior to the official start was well attended and offered an occasion to catch up with friends and colleagues. Scott Freitag, President, International Academies of Emergency Dispatch (IAED), kicked off the conference with the ACE and Dispatcher of the Year (DOY) awards during the Opening Session on Sept. 22.
Jerry Overton, Chair, IAED Board of Accreditation, presented an ACE re-accreditation award to East Midlands Ambulance Service; this is the agency’s third re-accreditation, having achieved the initial ACE designation in 2006.
East Midlands Ambulance Service provides dispatch services from two centers—Nottingham and Lincoln—serving a population of 4.8 million and covering 6,425 square miles across East Midlands (Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Lincolnshire, and North and North East Northamptonshire). The two centers respond to approximately 616,000 emergency and urgent calls each year.
Building on last year’s success, the Academy extended invitations to the short list of 10 DOY nominees (from the initial 24) to attend the award presentation, with winner Zoe Scott announced by Beverley Logan, IAED Accreditation Officer. Scott is an EMD for the North West Ambulance Service, NHS Trust. (See accompanying story on page 21.)
North West Ambulance Service recently restructured its QA/QI program to achieve ACE and, according to Logan, “Zoe is one of the members making a significant contribution to the accreditation journey and ultimately the overall accreditation goal. She clearly demonstrated with this call [the call played at UK NAVIGATOR and submitted as part of the nomination package], and the many others that she takes every day, that she puts the needs of the public above her own.”
North West Ambulance Service, NHS Trust was established in 2006 with the consolidation of the Cumbria, Lancashire, Mersey Regional, and Greater Manchester ambulance services to provide ambulance and prehospital care services to northwest England.
UK NAVIGATOR included sessions exploring quality assurance, customer service, continuous dispatch education, and protocol, among other relevant topics. The Academy also offered Q certification and recertification workshops.
