Ambulance service wired into the latest electric vehicle trials

East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST) is part of a national programme testing zero-emissions emergency response vehicles. Initial trials have been well-received and will be shifting up a gear soon.

Covering six counties, the 7500sqm of EEAST’s operational region ranges from cities to rural areas and rugged coastline. For some of our 6.2 million residents, an emergency journey to a cardiac centre can mean a 70-mile trip, so it’s not surprising our fleet of 500 vehicles racks up 16 million miles a year.

As well as the obvious significant fuel costs, this causes inevitable impact on the environment, so we have taken a keen interest in zero-emissions technology. We were early adopters of electric vehicles (EV) and have used alternative fuel vehicles (such as the Nissan Leaf) successfully in support services for some years.

In 2022, EEAST was selected to be part of NHS England’s Pathfinder scheme, trialling new technology to help the NHS reach its net zero carbon emissions pledge by 2045. We were awarded £250,000 to buy three fully-electric response vehicles and provide charging infrastructure.

We tested several different EVs before choosing two Skoda Enyaq sport line models and a Vauxhall Vivaro people carrier.

We chose the Enyaq because of its performance, practicality, value – and its 300-mile driving range. The Vivaro was chosen to permit different front-line roles. Twelve Mercedes eVito vans configured as mental health vehicles will also be arriving later this year.

The Enyaqs have been in front-line operational duty as rapid response vehicles since December 2023. They have proven such an asset we are now moving towards 20 per cent of our RRV fleet becoming electric. The Vivaro is in use in a co-responding scheme with our partners Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The vehicles are only one part of the story. Charging infrastructure is essential for both operational effectiveness and staff confidence.

We expect to supplement existing charging facilities with six fast-charging hubs before the end of the financial year, which will accommodate the additional Enyaqs and Mercedes. So-called ‘range anxiety’ is a feature of drivers new to EVs but has been short-lived and staff feedback has been vastly positive.

So far, we have focused our trials on non patient-carrying vehicles. As these develop and the supporting infrastructure is put in place, the next stage will be to use this learning process to decide how electric double-staffed ambulances could be trialled.

Patient safety is always our highest concern and before vehicles go into live tests, further testing, control measures and training will be in place to ensure we can operate electric ambulances effectively under emergency conditions.

Initial ambulance trials will include safety processes such as shadowing (where an empty electric ambulance shadows a diesel vehicle to observe its performance under emergency driving conditions) and later reverse shadowing (where an electric ambulance carries a patient, but is shadowed by a diesel vehicle).

Learning from these trials will feed into future planning and help shape national strategy ahead of the Net Zero deadlines.

The electrification of emergency vehicles is still rapidly evolving. EEAST and other ambulance trusts need to remain agile to react to evolving technology, but also to reflect, learn and be able to modify our processes to support this fundamental change in ambulance operations.

For more insight into the take up of EVs in the emergency services, watch our webinar Electric vehicles and the emergency services: a three part problem featuring NHS England ambulance transport lead Paul Leach.