New £6.5million Gillingham ambulance centre given green light
12:15, 17 August 2020
updated: 15:12, 17 August 2020
Plans for a new £6.5million ambulance centre has been given the green light.
Work on the development at Bredgar Road, Gillingham, which was approved by Medway Council, is expected to begin early next year and become fully operation in 2022.
It will have a new Make Ready Centre, which is a system of specialist teams of staff employed to clean, restock and maintain the Trust’s fleet, for the Towns as well as relocating 999 and NHS 111 operations centres from Coxheath and Ashford.
The new ambulance service site is being funded by a previously announced £6.52million of capital funding from the government.
It means crews currently starting and ending their shifts at Medway and Sittingbourne stations will soon be able to start and finish at the new centre.
Staff in Sheppey will continue to be stationed on the island, which is currently undergoing a major refurbishment to upgrade and provide new education and training facilities.
The new multi-purpose ambulance centre in Gillingham have been given the green light by planners in Medway.
John J O'Sullivan, an associate director at the ambulance service, said: “I’m really pleased the project has been given the go-ahead by planners.
"Our current emergency operations centre for the East of our region is outdated, lacks space and is no longer fit for purpose.
"Bringing our 999 and 111 operations under one roof provides us with greater resilience and enables the two services to work more closely together to benefit patients across our whole region.”
Operating unit manager for the Dartford and Medway SECAmb teams, Will Bellamy, added: “This latest stage in the roll-out of our Make Ready system is an important step in the development of the service we are able to provide our patients locally.
"The system is more efficient and also means ambulance crews have access to improved modern facilities for training.
“We understand that changes like this have an impact on staff and we will fully engage with all those the development affects ahead of go live in 2022.”
