London Ambulance Service is spending £31 million on upgrading its fleet with electric cars and charging stations, making it the biggest electric fleet of Fast Response Units in the UK.
Thirty-five electric Ford Mustang Mach-E cars are being delivered to LAS sites across London over the next few weeks, adding to the seven models it already owns. The cars have been converted to suit paramedics responding to 999 emergencies in the capital.
Mustang Mach-E cars can cost around £67,000 each.
In August, four fully electric ambulances will be rolled out.
It is part of a wider initiative to clean-up its fleet of about 1,000 vehicles to comply with the ultra-low emission zone and in line with Mayor Sadiq Khan’s vision of the capital being net zero” for carbon emissions by 2030.
“Having cleaner and greener vehicles is extremely important in improving air quality – not just for our people and our patients – but also for the health of our communities across London,” said LAS chief executive Daniel Elkeles.
The Mustang Mach-E battery takes just 40 minutes to charge up to 80 per cent. That allows the car to travel more than 300 miles, which is about ten times further than an ambulance would normally cover on a shift.
The blue lights and sirens are powered by a 12-volt battery, rather than the car’s drive battery, but LAS is fitting solar panels to the cars to make them “even more environmentally-friendly”.
As part of a £31 million investment programme, the service is also investing in charging infrastructure across its sites and ambulance stations, as well as recruiting new mechanics and upskilling current mechanics to maintain the new fleet.
Last year, LAS introduced three electric motorcycles to its fleet – the first ambulance service in the country to do so.
As well as the fully electric ambulances, cars and motorcycles, LAS has a further 18 hybrid vans and 13 plug in hybrid cars.
The multi-million pound investment comes as staff are locked in a dispute over the Government’s pay offer for 2022/23.
Members of Unison striked in December, January and February in an escalation of the long-running dispute over pay.
Further strike action planned for March was paused. The strikes were called off so unions could negotiate with the Government but union bosses have warned that further strikes could take place “with a vengeance” if the talks fail.
Members of Unison, which includes LAS staff, last week accepted a 5 per cent pay rise from April and a one-off payment to top up this current year’s pay award.
A ballot of GMB members, also LAS staff, will close at the end of the month.
In January NHS England data revealed that ambulance response times fell to their worst on record.
One in 10 people were left waiting for ambulances for more than three-and-a-half hours after falling seriously ill – with the likes of hearts attacks, strokes and sepsis.
The average response time in December for ambulances dealing with the most urgent incidents, such as cardiac arrests, was 10 minutes and 57 seconds, the data showed.
