Ambulance service urging new governors to join

Numbers are already below the full levels.

Volunteers are being urged to come forward to help swell the ranks of a depleted group that helps oversee the region’s ambulance service.

While paramedics and call handlers come to mind when people think about the ambulance service, less well-known are the group of governors that lobby on its behalf and hold its management to account.

The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, which has more than 6,000 staff across its 131 sites, launched its nomination process at the start of November, and anyone can put themselves forward for a governor post until 5pm on Tuesday 19 November.

Membership is already below its full levels, and so the ambulance service is hoping greater numbers will put themselves forward this year.

“The number of governors we should have is 26, and we are running at about 18 governors now, so we’re a bit short already,” Luke March, lead governor for the trust told Radio Exe’s Devoncast podcast.

“Some will be seeking re-election but we’re looking for quite a number of governors.”

Mr March stressed that no prior experience is required, nor is medical experience, and that the aim for the governorship is simply is to have a diverse, community-focused group who appreciate and understand the benefits the ambulance service provides and want to work together to make sure it is able to operate to the best of its ability.

“We’re definitely hoping that we get some interest in this nomination period as the ambulance service is one of the key services in this country in the health sector,” Mr March said.

“So it is absolutely vital that we as local people are willing to support them in their work, and to challenge them, and be beside them as they meet the daily challenges that we all know exist.”

A total of 14 seats are being put up for re-election this time, with three of those being for members of the public in Devon and one being for a staff member who works in accident and emergency in South and West, Cornwall or the Scilly Isles.

Other seats across the trust, which covers roughly 20 per cent of mainland England and deals with roughly 2,650 incidents a day, include vacancies for members of the public in other areas and one other staff member vacancy.

People who want to put themselves forward for a seat will be offered it after the nomination period closes providing nobody else has nominated themselves for the same seat.

If multiple people put themselves forward for a seat, then an election will be held, which will run from Friday 6 December until Monday 13 January at 5pm.

Terms are ordinarily for three years, and members of the public can stand in constituencies from Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire all the way down to Cornwall.