Whilst one of our Paramedic crews were attending a 999 call on behalf of the North East Ambulance Service in the early hours of Sunday the 6th November 2022, the vehicle had items stolen from it essential to our emergency response.
We are grateful to Cleveland Police for their public appeal and to the members of the public who contacted us direct and provided identification of the criminal which was promptly passed onto the police.
We are pleased the individual has received a custodial sentence as this did impact our response times for over a week until replacement equipment was installed.
Andy Thomas, CIPHER Medical’s CEO & Consultant Paramedic said “I am extremely grateful to the police and our community who helped bring this individual swiftly to justice.
“Although the essential items were not recovered, we urgently sourced replacements and I’m pleased to say that vehicle is again providing lifesaving support to the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) and our community.
“All our vehicles are fitted with CCTV and will be used in cases of theft or violence against our crews. Our crews work tirelessly 24/7 to support the community along with our exceptionally hard-working NHS colleagues. We feel they should be able to carry out their duty without the fear of theft or indeed in some cases violence.
“We shall leave no stone unturned in providing support to the police in bringing anyone to justice should offences occur against our teams, our NHS colleagues, or our staff.”
Due to the diligent work of the police and our internal logistics team we had this vehicle back up and running in 7 days allowing us to maintain our 999 support and are grateful to the team at NEAS in assisting with replacing some of this essential equipment.
As an organisation we always prioritise our wide range of services in our support to the NHS and we are glad we can continue to do so.
