Celebrating 50 years

in 2015, we celebrated 50 years of caring for the capital. Since it was established in 1965, London Ambulance Service has become the busiest emergency service in the UK, and like London, the Service continues to grow and develop.

Over the last 50 years our Service has significantly changed. We have moved from simply collecting patients with just a stretcher, a splint and breathing apparatus to a service with highly skilled clinicians, many with paramedic science degrees, who diagnose and treat patients at the scene of incidents.

Our paramedics now carry up to 30 different drugs and make life and death decisions about themost appropriate place to take a patient for treatment. Our ambulances are now kitted out with defibrillators to restart patients’ hearts and ECG machines to detect heart attacks.

We have a wide range of frontline staff, from emergency ambulance crew, through to advanced and consultant paramedics and have a paramedic at director-level on our Trust Board.

We now also use a number of different modes of transport to reach our patient including bicycles, motorbikes and first response cars and a helicopter.

We now serve over seven and a half million people commuting, living and visiting London and operate over an area of approximately 620 square miles, from Heathrow in the west to Upminster in the east, and from Enfield in the north to Purley in the south.

If you’d like to find out more about the history of London Ambulance Service, read our 10 Facts and take a look at our then and now photo collection.