Ambulance control room staff celebrated during International Control Room Week

This week is International Control Room Week, when control rooms around the world celebrate their achievements and raise awareness of the life-saving work of employees in critical control rooms.

For the East of England Ambulance Service (EEAST), it’s an opportunity to spotlight the teams in its three Emergency Operations Centres (EOCs), which together cover six counties and handle around 1.4 million calls every year – that’s about 4,000 calls a day.

Roughly a quarter of those calls come from doctors, nurses or other healthcare professionals arranging care or transport for patients. The rest are members of the public dialling 999 and each of those calls begins the same way.

The first question

In the Norwich control room, a 999 call flashes up on screen. A call handler answers immediately, the first point of contact for someone in distress.

“Is the patient breathing?”

It’s the first of a series of structured questions used by ambulance services across England. The system adapts as answers are entered, helping the handler quickly determine what’s wrong and how serious the situation is.

In this case, the patient is at home and in severe pain. They’re assessed as Category 2, a serious but not immediately life-threatening emergency. EEAST receives nearly half a million Category 2 calls each year.

Managing demand

The call handler assigns the case for an ambulance response and checks the large display screen showing live data: how many calls are waiting, current demand, and estimated waiting times. It’s a busy Friday night. The caller is advised that an ambulance is on the way, but there could be a delay.

The incident now moves to a dispatcher, who monitors available ambulance crews on a constantly updating digital map. Every nearby crew is already attending to patients or responding to higher-priority cases. When a crew 20 minutes away becomes free, they’re assigned to respond.

Moments later, a Category 1 call comes in – the highest priority, involving a patient in cardiac arrest. The dispatcher diverts the newly assigned ambulance, as every second counts in such cases. One in ten calls to EEAST are Category 1 emergencies.

Checking in

The original Category 2 patient is still waiting. A paramedic from the Clinical Assessment Service (CAS) calls back to check whether their condition has changed and whether an ambulance remains the best option.

The CAS team reassesses the patient’s symptoms and provides advice or alternative care options when appropriate. Last year, 11% of callers were helped by CAS without an ambulance being sent, freeing up resources for the most urgent calls. EEAST aims to increase that figure to 16%.

On the move

After confirming that the patient’s condition hasn’t worsened, CAS closes the reassessment. Another ambulance becomes available nearby, just three minutes away. The dispatcher assigns the crew, and this time they make it to the scene without being diverted.

The crew updates their status to ‘with patient’. They’ll remain unavailable until the patient has been assessed, treated and transported, and the ambulance is ready for its next job.

One call among thousands

This case, resolved within a few hours, represents just one of the 4,000 emergency calls EEAST handles every day.

For the teams in Norwich, Bedford and Chelmsford, International Control Room Week is a reminder of the constant, coordinated work that goes unseen and the people who make those lifesaving decisions every minute of the day.

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