AN ambulance trust is considering “politely declining” a national NHS offer to have more electric vehicles in its 1,000-strong fleet next year.
West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) already has 74 battery-powered vehicles, including 18 emergency ambulances in urban areas.
But a meeting of the WMAS University NHS Foundation Trust board heard that eight more electric vehicles (EVs) are on their way this year, with another 16 ordered for 2026-27 as part of a drive to net zero carbon emissions.
But Karen Rutter, director of finance, told her colleagues they need to look at how effective the ambulance are.
“We have had an offer from NHS England to say ‘can we do any more next year’. I haven’t really pushed that.
“We’re probably going to politely decline that because we want to have a look at how effective they are, whether we are having any issues. I think that’s probably the right thing to do.”
WMAS serves a population of six million people in Shropshire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Coventry, Birmingham and the Black Country.
The service introduced the first fully electric frontline emergency ambulance in 2020.
But a paper presented to the board meeting on its fleet strategy reported that current technology is still in its infancy in some of the categories of vehicles in operation.
It said:
“A good example of this is front line emergency ambulances, largely due to their weight and electrical power requirements for ancillary items.
“Four years into operation, this asset has proved that an emergency ambulance can be operated on a fully electric platform in a tightly controlled urban environment. However, range, access to auxiliary power, reliability and recharging times remain a challenge.
“In its later years there as been a decline in reliability and increase in maintenance costs, a matter which is being closely monitored.
“It is important the main vehicle manufacturers offering of light commercial vehicles, with adequate range and weight capacity and conversion capability, are brought to market in the following decade.”
The report added that four-ton vehicles are not “seeing the amount of focus from vehicle manufacturers in developing zero emission platforms” and that “this is partly due to the volume market being the 3.5-ton and under where there are more options”.
“At the time of preparing this document there is only one viable base vehicle to build an emergency ambulance on – the Ford Transit. It is however limited to 70mph and has a range of 100 miles maximum.
“As part of a NHS-led initiative, some of these vehicles will be implemented into operation to provide a real-world trial of the technology.
“This would be a challenging implementation into some of the more rural hubs given the daily shift mileage and distances involved.”
