Twitterthon to give unique insight into ambulance service's busiest day of the year

To coincide with Black Friday on December 16, the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) will run a winter 24-hour Twitterthon, highlighting the work of staff and volunteers and the type and sheer volume of calls received this time of year.

The day is traditionally known to emergency services in the UK as Black Friday because of its connection with Christmas parties and nights out. Last year, the service took 3,186 calls during Black Friday, making it one of its of the 30 busiest days between November and February.

The Twitterthon can be followed by using #24HoursinEoE, and starts at 7am from the Norwich control centre, moving to Chelmsford, then Bedford, and finishing with a rideout in Peterborough.

Gary Morgan: “By splitting the event between all three of our control rooms and shadowing some of our road staff, we hope to shine a wider spotlight on what it takes to work on one of our busiest times of year for the ambulance service.

“In an ideal world, we’d invite every single person to ride out on an ambulance and see a control room, but in reality bringing it to life for people who use Twitter is one of the next best things we do to give people an appreciation of our work and the activity we face on such a busy day.

“Obviously we hope it makes people think twice about how they may use NHS services and 999 in particular during the festive period – the 23rd of December is also predicted to be a busy Friday as it’s the last before Christmas, so if people can take on board just what it is we face and use services differently, it can have real benefits to everyone including other patients in their emergency hour of need.”

All of the information about winter health and demand on the ambulance service can be found at www.eastamb.nhs.uk.