The North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NWAS) was formed in 2006 out of four separate ambulance trusts in the North West of England and is now the second largest ambulance service in the country.
It operates four control centres in Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria, which form the region’s primary 999 emergency call answering and ambulance despatch service.
The control centre facilities are supported by local standby power systems and always reliant on the availability and integrity of business critical electrical and electronic equipment.
Following a competitive tender, NWAS awarded a major mechanical and electrical (M&E) consultancy contract to RWA. The scope of this was to review how electrical power supply arrangements differ at the four call centres, then establish an agreed uniform approach to standby power and electrical resilience across the Trust.
Drawing on its experience working with a number of emergency services organisations, RWA carried out an extensive review of electrical resilience across all four sites before making recommendations on how to bring each of the locations up to the required ideal standard. Once the consultancy recommendations were approved, RWA began work on the implementation phase of the project.
“RWA was able to demonstrate its suitability for this contract tender and we have been very happy with the work carried out. Wherever practicable, we would continue to use the company on further M&E consultancy projects in the future.”
Dave McNichol, Estates Manager at NWAS in Whitefield