Ambulance Redesign Goes to the Birthplace of the Modern UK Paramedic

The project’s mobile demonstrator unit – a full-scale model of the new interior space – attracted a stream of enthusiastic visitors from among the 1,000 delegates attending the pre-emergency and cardiac care conference, one of the largest of its kind.

Organised by the South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) and held at the Amex Stadium, Brighton, IPHEC 2015 featured high profile international speakers and showcased an extensive array of emergency healthcare services, manufacturers and related technology exhibitors.

The Royal College of Art’s demonstrator unit was positioned alongside a fleet of emergency response vehicles from past and present, giving a glimpse of what the future ambulance may look like.

The ambulance project is currently part of the pan-European consortium Smart Ambulance European Procurers Platform (SAEPP), a development project funded under the EU’s Horizon 2020 initiative that supports programmes that seek to improve wealth and quality of life across Europe by coupling research with the private sector and by removing barriers to innovation.

A small team from the SAEPP consortium, including members from the Royal College of Art, NHS Commercial Solutions, Ambulance Today and BITECIC, manned the SAEPP stand over the two days of the conference, engaging with the project’s potential end-users, healthcare bosses and technology experts, who could potentially feed into the project’s ICT development.  

Brighton, the location for IPHEC 2015, first witnessed the emergence of the modern UK paramedic profession we know today – thanks mainly to the pioneering work of Professor Douglas Chamberlain, who was instrumental in promoting pre-hospital critical care in the early 1970s. Professor Chamberlain was among several high-profile visitors to the RCA demonstrator unit at the event.

More information on Redesigning the Ambulance RCA project here