Frequently asked FOI questions

Please note: information will be updated on a six monthly basis

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) acquired the former Great Western Ambulance Service Trust (GWAS) on 1 February 2013. Prior to this date, SWASFT covered Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. GWAS covered the former Avon area, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

Where available, information is provided from the start of the financial year.

Governance and Finance

Overtime Payments

Please see figures as below, noting the breakdown of different types of overtime payments along with the basic pay wages for comparison:

 

Overtime Payments

Type

17/18

18/19

19/20

Note

Overtime

              4,733,360

       4,331,855

       6,131,639

Additional hours worked on top of full time hours

Overrun overtime

              2,860,802

       2,862,603

       3,211,091

Involuntary hours worked at the end of a shift

Additional Basic

              1,177,748

       1,149,641

       1,327,447

Additional hours worked on top of part-time hours

Bank

              7,845,792

       7,535,588

       4,780,630

Hours worked by those holding a bank contract (17/18 & 18/19 the trust held the out of hours contract in Dorset using doctors on a bank contract)

Incentives

              1,179,792

           754,332

       2,560,080

A premium paid to work a shift of additional hours

Basic pay

         168,492,089

   178,417,071

   191,976,962

Contracted hours paid

 

Private Ambulance Usage & Expenditure

Usage

See below. Please note however that this is a non-standard reporting metric; as such it is likely that the figures are not 100% accurate and should be taken as indicative only. They should not be used as the basis for any onward research or publication.

Financial Year Name

Total Incidents with a Private resource attending

Total Number of Incidents Attended

% Incidents attended where a Private resource arrived at scene

2015/16

18691

814593

2.3%

2016/17

21841

785340

2.8%

2017/18

21403

815060

2.6%

2018/19

19992

821073

2.4%

2019/20

20,403

845,528

2.41%

Expenditure

Please see table below:

Year

Total Trust Expenditure budget (£k)

Third Parties Expenditure (£k)

Percentage

Notes

2015-16

226,158.58

5,559.82

2.5%

During this time SWASFT was also operating a Patient Transport Services contract in the BNSSG area

2016-17

232,105.20

5,241.93

2.3%

This was the final year during which SWASFT provided a Patient Transport Services (PTS) contract

2017-18

226,625.00

4,709.52

2.1%

 

2018-19

£227,467,235

4,090.24

1.80%

 

2019-20

241,824,000

4,802,533

1.99%

 

 

Translation Services

Services used

The Trust uses telephone-based support for translation services. The Language Line can be accessed by any member of staff, i.e.

  • Staff in our Clinical Hub (999 Control Room) for 999 call assistance  
  • Support services (i.e. complaints, plaudits, claims, safeguarding etc)
  • Frontline staff (i.e. a Paramedic on scene with a patient can telephone the language line for assistance)

Contract

The Trust uses Language Line Solutions for our provision of translation services.

Contract awarded: April 2017

Contract end: March 2020

Extension period: 24 months (contract has been extended until March 2022)

Framework reference: SBS/16/JS/ZWV/9005/07

 

Expenditure

Financial year

£

2014-15

   12,993.19

2015-16

   13,025.72

2016-17

   13,783.07

2017-18

   11,289.35

2018-19

   11,494.93

2019-20

   12,750.50

2020-21

18,319.67

 

10 most popular languages (as of July 2019)

Polish

Romanian

Arabic

Spanish

Portuguese

Bulgarian

Lithuanian

Russian

Turkish

Somali

Incident Type Specific Data

Hoax '999' Calls

Making hoax calls can put lives at risk. We strongly encourage parents to impress upon their children and other loved ones the importance of only dialling ‘999’ in a genuine emergency situation. It is vital that people understand and appreciate the consequences associated with making hoax calls. We work with the Police and other partners to seek the prosecution of people who abuse the 999 system.

The only calls we positively identify as inappropriate are hoax calls. Calls are only stopped as hoax calls where it is clear the call did not originate from a genuine requirement for the 999 Ambulance Service. Calls made in good faith which turn out to be unnecessary are not recorded as hoax calls.

 

Hoax 999 calls

Question

Response

How often do the Trust receive hoax calls?

Click here for indicative data from 2018-2019.

 

It should however be noted that  these figures are indicative only; Clinical Hub (999 Control Room) practices change from time to time with regards to the ‘tagging’ of hoax calls; any fluctuations in numbers may be related to procedure rather than the genuine ebb and flow of hoax callers. The true number of hoax callers may well be higher.

Do they happen more frequently at certain times of the day?

The data above includes graphs relating to the timings of the calls

Why don’t you have older data prior to 2018?

Hoax calls were not routinely being ‘tagged’ and captured on our reporting systems prior to 2018.

 

Do you predict how many hoax calls you will get?

No.

 

How much does it cost the ambulance service to respond to hoax calls?

Average SWASFT cost per incident for AQI activity within the 2021/22 financial year.

 

Cost per Incident

Hear & Treat Incidents

£109.23

See & Treat Incidents

£273.13

See & Convey Incidents

£417.16

Other Scenario

£14.41

 

How many hours are spent attending to hoax 999 calls, or answering hoax 999 calls?

The Trust does not undertake calculations of this nature.

 

When will more data be available?

We anticipate publishing a further dataset on hoax calls in January 2021  

 

 

Mental health calls recieved

Please find further information here.

IT and Systems

Digitisation of Patient Records

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Electronic Care System

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Business Continuity Plans, Data Security, Cyber Security, ICT risks, Clud Solutions and ICB budget

Further information on this can be found here.

 

Mobile Phone Information and Cyber Security 

Further information on this can be found  here.

Operations

Bariatric Vehicles/Spend

The only bariatric equipment the Trust uses is bariatric capable stretchers and the fixings to accommodate them. Since 2013 all ambulance vehicles purchased for SWASFT have been bariatric capable. We have a rolling schedule of vehicle replacement and as vehicles are replaced the replacement vehicles are equipped with bariatric capable stretchers and the fixings. These vehicles would have been purchased anyway so the bariatric capability merely ensures we can provide each patient with the appropriate level of care. These bariatric capable vehicles are deployed to all types of incidents the Trust attends. We do not record if a vehicle is specifically attending a bariatric related incident and therefore cannot distinguish bariatric related calls within the attendance data we hold.

 

Mandatory Police Warning Markers

Further information can be found here.

 

Use of Sirens for Vehicles

Further information can be found here.

Publication Scheme

Staffing, Resourcing and HR

Bank Staff, Agency Staff and International Recruitment

International Recruitment

  • We welcomed 10 recruits from New Zealand in April 2019.
  • The Trust also ran a further recruitment drive from New Zealand during 2019, and a further 12 started with us in January 2020.

Bank staff

  • The Trust uses internal bank staff (i.e. staff employed directly by the Trust on a bank contract)
  • We do not use third party bank suppliers
  • In the last 12 months our average number of staff on bank contracts was a headcount of 728 staff
  • The proportion of shifts covered by bank staff was an average of 12% in the 2020-21 financial year.
  • Bank staff are rostered using GRS, the same platform we use to roster all staff
  • We do not use any additional rostering software
  • Bank Spend – please see below:
Bank Staff

Financial Year

Notes

2018/19

 

2019/20

 

2020/21

Administrative and Clerical - this category includes roles within our Clinical Hubs.

 

 

Agency

  • As with bank, South Western Ambulance Service very rarely uses temporary agency staff from third party suppliers
  • If we require extra resourcing we generally offer overtime to staff already employed by the Trust as well as advertising available shifts to our internal bank staff

Financial Year

Notes

2018/19

 

2019/20

 

2020/21

Administrative and Clerical  - this category includes roles within our Clinical Hubs.

 

  • In terms of ambulance ‘frontline’ provision we sometimes use third party providers such as Bristol Ambulance. This contract involves the joint provision of staff and vehicles - we do not tend to employ agency paramedics separately. Additional details are available under ‘Private Ambulance Use’ Frequently Asked FOIs.
  • We do not use Direct Engagement
  • We do not have an MV supplier   
  • For non-clinical staff the Trust uses a framework; https://www.crowncommercial.gov.uk/agreements/RM6160

 

Physical Assaults on Staff

Further information can be found here.

 

Verbal Assaults on Staff

Further information can be found here.

 

2018 to 2024 Headline figures

 

Staff Absence

Further information can be found here.

 

Staff Numbers and Roles

Further information can be found here.

 

Gender pay reporting

Introduction

Under the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017, we are legally required to comply with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information). The gender pay gap is a high level snapshot of pay within an organisation and shows the difference in the average pay between all men and women in a workforce.

Gender Pay Gap Reporting is not to be confused with, ‘equal pay’ which is a more specific legal concept that A gender pay gap does not equate to the existence of an equal pay problem, albeit a gender pay gap may be a trigger for further investigation about the reasons why the gap exists.

The requirements of these regulations involve carrying out six calculations that show the difference between the average earnings of men and women in our organisation; however it does not involve publishing individual employee’s data.  These six calculations are;

  • Mean gender pay gap;
  • Median gender pay gap;
  • Mean bonus gender pay gap;
  • Median bonus gender pay gap;
  • Proportion of males and females receiving a bonus payment;
  • Proportion of males and females in each pay quartile.

Workforce detail

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust currently employs 4861 members of staff on permanent and fixed term contracts.  A further 712 individuals on zero hours bank contracts.  The gender split for our organisation is 53.60% male and 46.40% female. The details supplied in the report include all permanent, fixed term contract staff and employee employed on zero hours bank contracts.   

Salary data used for this report is based on employee pay on the snapshot date of 31 March 2021.

 

Average & Median Hourly Rate

Gender

Avg. Hourly Rate

Median Hourly Rate

Male

15.95

15.65

Female

14.99

14.42

Difference

0.96

1.23

Pay Gap %

6.06

7.88

 

Q1 = Low, Q4 = High

Quartile Report

Quartile

Female

Male

Female %

Male %

1

607

649

48.33

51.67

2

645

614

51.23

48.77

3

529

536

49.67

50.33

4

514

938

35.40

64.60

 

Bonus Pay

At South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust we also pay incentive payments to staff to cover vacant shifts which are deemed crucial for operational delivery.  As such payment schemes are counted as bonus schemes in terms of the gender pay reporting.

Salary data used for this report is based on employee bonus pay between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021. (A negative amount shows the amount of pay for women is higher than that of their male colleagues).

 

Pay reporting

Gender

Employees Paid Bonus

Total Relevant Employees

%

Male

2018

2962

68.13%

Female

1704

2485

68.57%

 

 

Pay reporting

Gender

Avg. Pay

Median Pay

Male

1,603.42

1000

Female

1,453.20

959.16

Difference

150.22

40.84

Pay Gap %

9.37

4.08

 

Comparison to Previous Year

Comparison to Previous Year

 

2021

2020

Gender

Avg. Hourly Rate

Median Hourly Rate

Avg. Hourly Rate

Median Hourly Rate

Male

15.95

15.65

15.23

15.34

Female

14.99

14.42

14.26

13.14

Difference

0.96

1.23

0.97

2.23

Pay Gap %

6.06

7.88

6.37

14.53

 

Comparison to Previous Year

 

2021

2020

Quartile

Female

Male

Female %

Male %

Female

Male

Female %

Male %

1

607

649

48.33

51.67

579

630

47.89

52.11

2

645

614

51.23

48.77

659

552

54.42

45.58

3

529

536

49.67

50.33

511

699

42.23

57.77

4

514

938

35.40

64.60

486

725

40.13

59.87

The report shows that our gender pay gap has reduced this year from 6.37% to 6.06% and the median hourly rate has reduced from 14.53% to 7.88%. 

Actions

We continued to review our ongoing initiatives within the organisation that are specifically focused to address any areas of gender inequality:

  • Review of flexible working practices;
  • Explicitly offering all roles on a job share basis;
  • Engagement with females in operations to highlight potential and perceived barriers to their progression;
  • Reviewing a specific female leadership and mentoring programme; and
  • Introduction of a Gender Equality Network Group.

The Trust is also working across all areas of diversity in collaboration with the Equality Steering Group to increase representation across the protected characteristics, and ensure that their needs are reviewed and discussed on an official platform.