AN ambulance was sent out to care for Phil Barlow’s mother three times in the space of one weekend.

Each time, she had fallen at her sheltered home and each time staff could not help her up, so they dialled 999.

When the paramedics arrived they did not know if she was ill, so they took her to hospital where she was finally able to stand up.

Mr Barlow, a non-executive director of the East of England Ambulance Service, said this experience helped convince him of the need for a complete overhaul of the way 999 calls are dealt with.

He said: “If we can transform even 10 per cent of those experiences it has got to be better for the public and it has got to be better for the way we run our service.”

Mr Barlow’s experience was recounted at a roadshow in Colchester about the service’s bid to become an NHS foundation trust.

The presentation started with Paul Leaman, the associate director of operational partnerships at the trust, telling those assembled what they do.

As well as sending ambulances out to 999 calls, the 4,000 staff and 2,500 volunteers at the trust also offer some out-of-hours care and patient transport.

The most recent survey of patient satisfaction found 97 per cent of people who used the service were happy.

So why the need to change?

As Mr Leaman explains, with an ageing and growing population, demand for ambulances is rising at the same time a public spending squeeze is on the way.

He said: “Last year we saw a 6.1 per cent increase and this year we have seen a further 3 per cent on top of that, so demand is rising.

“There is also a financial pressure this year. We’re all aware of Chancellor George Osborne’s ethos to balance the books.

“While the NHS is ring-fenced, we still have to survive in an area where the costs of vehicles and fuel is rising.

“We just can’t keep on every year delivering more and more treatment for more and more patients.”

When the service receives a 999 call, if someone’s life is believed to be in danger, it is treated as a category A call and an ambulance or first responder will endeavour to be at the address within eight minutes.

Serious but non life-threatening calls are registered as category B, while category C calls are non-life threatening and not serious.

It is many of these where the trust believes an alternative to being carted off to hospital is needed.

Mr Leaman said: “We know more than 60 per cent of people who call 999 don’t end up being taken to hospital.

“That’s because their needs aren’t acute, but they have a chronic illness which has flared up.

“What we want to do is to deliver care for those patients who don’t necessarily need a blue light response.

“If we can link in with nursing colleagues in primary care, is it not that much better than taking that person off to hospital?”

But how will becoming a foundation trust bring these ambitious plans to fruition?

A clinical support desk, linking with GPs and other health service personnel, is already being tried in parts of Essex, and it is thought that becoming a foundation trust will give the service more freedom and control over its own finances to make stronger links with other health services and partners.

But the trust’s representatives did not make the link clear at the meeting, even when asked.

Instead, they emphasised how becoming a foundation trust will give members of the public more of a say on how it is run.

A new members council will be created with 13 members of the public, five staff representatives and five others from other public authorities and charities.

The board will have the power to appoint the trust’s chairman and non-executive directors and agree their pay, and approve the appointment of the trust’s chief executive.

Mr Leaman said: “What we want to do is engage with the whole of the east of England, so they have a greater involvement in the way their ambulance service is being run.”

But if the Colchester meeting was anything to go by, they face an uphill struggle.

The numbers attending barely hit double figures, and they all had strong links with the health service. Some were volunteers, one was a paramedic and one worked in the private sector.

For the ambulance trust’s plans to reach fruition, bosses somehow have to encourage the ordinary man in the street to get involved.