Colleagues in our Medway emergency operations centre (EOC) and Paddock Wood make ready centre (MRC) received a visit from colleagues at the Brabant Regional Ambulance Service in the Netherlands.

Hosted on Wednesday, 25 September, the visit originated after the Dutch team learned of the West Kent clinical coordination hub’s success in preventing more than 1,200 emergency department admissions in its first year. This success was possible by redirecting patients to more appropriate settings, such as same day emergency care (SDEC), urgent treatment centres (UTC), and frailty units.

Keen to understand the hub’s impact and how it links with the EOC, the group travelled to our sites to see the operation in action, while gaining insights into our approach to clinical coordination. Part of this includes the planned rollout of five new clinical coordination hubs as part of the Trust’s five-year strategy.

Representing the Brabant Regional Ambulance Service were Harm van de Pas, Executive Medical Director for Ambulance Care and EOC, Eugene den Boer, Manager for Health & Innovation and Nurse Practitioner, Geert-Jan Deddens, Nurse Practitioner and Frank de Lau, Policy Advisor for Health, Innovation & Research.

The group began their visit at Medway MRC, where they were given a comprehensive tour of the site, including an in-depth review of our 999 and 111 operations. They spent time in the emergency operations centre, meeting colleagues and each having one-on-one time observing key areas such as 999 call handling, clinical safety navigation, clinical assessment, and dispatch functions.

The group found particular interest in SECAmb’s role of clinical safety navigator and observed one colleague who demonstrated how the central clinical oversight function operates.

Later, the group also travelled to Paddock Wood to see the West Kent clinical coordination hub, a highlight of the day that left a strong impression on the group. It was here that they met with the multi-disciplinary hub team, listening into a real-life scenario’s where crews called the hub for advice and guidance on the management of various complex patient presentations.

Practice Development Lead, Sean Edwards said: “It was exciting to host this visit and share our developments and innovations across international borders. It was clear from talking to the visitors that we have similar challenges across healthcare, and we can learn from each other.”

Frank de Lau commented: “It’s been a really great day at SECAmb, hearing about so many things we can use back home. We’ve had so much inspiration about initiatives we should implement ourselves and really the take home message is to stop talking and start doing.”

Clinical Manager Lead for Integrated Care, Kieran Cambell added: “Our visitors left being very impressed in everything that we are achieving in SECAmb whilst still appreciating the challenges that we face, as always, the hospitality and knowledge demonstrated by our staff shone through, so thank you to all those involved! This was a great collaboration in jointly hosting a visit between our EOC & Paddock Wood clinical teams.”