What we do

As the mobile arm of the health service in London, our main role is to respond to emergency 999 calls, getting medical help to patients who have serious or life-threatening injuries or illnesses as quickly as possible.

The majority of our patients, however, do not have serious or life-threatening conditions. And they don’t need to be sent an ambulance on blue lights and sirens. Often they can receive more appropriate care somewhere other than at hospital.

Find out how we deal with less serious calls.

Infection prevention and control is the responsibility of every member of our staff, especially those treating and facing patients. We are committed to providing a clean and hygienic environment in which to treat you.

Find out more about our infection control and prevention methods.

In addition, we manage the Emergency Bed Service, a bed-finding system for NHS healthcare professionals who need to make arrangements for their seriously-ill patients.

Find out more about our Emergency Bed Service

As an emergency service in the capital we need to be prepared to deal with large-scale incidents. The biggest challenges we have faced have been the London bombings in July 2005, the Westminster and London Bridge terror attacks in 2017 and the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017.

We have responded to many major incidents in London, the most notable being the bombings on 7 July 2005, the terrorists attacks in Westminster, London Bridge, Finsbury Park and Parsons Green in 2017, and the tragic fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017.

During large-scale incidents of this nature, we work closely with other emergency services and organisations in London to save lives.

Our responsibilities include:

• putting hospitals in London on alert to receive patients;
• setting up a system at the scene for prioritising and treating patients based on their medical needs;
• treating, stabilising and caring for people who are injured; and
• taking patients who need further treatment to hospital.

We test our major incident plan on a regular basis, often alongside other agencies.

The London Emergency Services Liaison Panel’s Major Incident Procedure Manual provides a summary of the roles of each of the emergency services at a major incident, as well as an outline of the support offered by local authorities.

We also support the Stop Terrorists and Extremists’ online presence campaign. If you find illegal or harmful information, pictures or videos online, you can make an anonymous report on the Home Office website.

Our Patient Experiences Department collates all the feedback that we have received and focuses on common themes within the feedback in order to help us to continually improve the service that we provide.

Find out more about our Patient Experiences team.