Road operations Netcare 911’s position as a leading emergency service provider …

Road operations

Netcare 911’s position as a leading emergency service provider in South Africa is underpinned by its more than 100 operations in South Africa. Netcare 911’s investment in self-owned and managed emergency vehicles assists in ensuring optimum response performance, resource availability and controlling our end-product service quality. By leasing the fleet of vehicles we use for our road operations, Netcare 911 ensures that all vehicles are replaced within a two-year period, thereby effecting improved reliability and availability in addition to benefiting from technological enhancements to our fleet.

Providing our patients with world class quality care is a priority for Netcare 911, and we continue to focus on optimising all of our business operations, including our road operations, in order to ensure that this is achieved.

Our patient feedback system enables us to monitor our patients’ experience, address any concerns and benchmark our patient satisfaction levels against the results of the Council of Ambulance Authorities National Patient Satisfaction Surveys. This survey includes service quality and satisfaction ratings of ambulance services across Australia and in New Zealand.

In providing emergency management services on par with international standards, Netcare 911 operates the following:

A fleet of more than 200 emergency vehicles strategically deployed throughout the nine provinces of South Africa.
60 rapid response vehicles (RRVs) crewed by advanced life support (ALS) paramedics and equipped with the latest technology equipment for immediate dispatch to any acute trauma or medical emergencies.

A fleet of 135 ambulances equipped for the transportation of ill and injured patients. Our ambulances are manned by emergency care practitioners trained to the appropriate level of care, namely basic life support (BLS), intermediate life support (ILS) and advanced life support (ALS) levels to manage the specific condition of the patient.
Four dedicated mobile intensive care units, equipped with specialised equipment, to facilitate inter-hospital transfer of critically ill or injured, high-risk patients ranging from adults to neonates.
Three rescue vehicles, equipped with specialised extrication and rescue equipment, to support municipal fire and emergency services in rescue operations and at accident scenes.

Rapid response and road ambulance service
The first 60 minutes following a medical emergency is often referred to as the ‘golden hour’. This is the window of opportunity where appropriate pre-hospital emergency medical care can positively impact a patient’s outcome. Netcare 911 therefore places considerable emphasis on optimising efficiencies throughout the value chain, to enable our paramedics to reach patients in need of emergency medical care in the quickest possible time.

Our fleet of over 200 rapid response vehicles and road ambulances are strategically deployed throughout the nine provinces of South Africa. Custom-designed integrated call taking (ICT) and integrated dispatch system (IDS) technology in Netcare 911’s national emergency operations centre (EOC) ensure that the nearest emergency response team is dispatched to an emergency scene.

All of Netcare 911’s emergency vehicles are equipped with global positioning technology (GPS) technology, and also utilise satellite tracking to assist our emergency medical staff to get to the scene of an emergency in the shortest possible time.

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