Hi there,

As part of the St John Ambulance service, I have just been issued with a non-geographical number for contacting the Ambulance Service if requesting the attendance of an NHS Trust vehicle instead of using 999.

The number given is 0845 120 6341

I have tried using Google but no luck.

Any help would be gratefully received.

G

# Title amended ~ DaveM

Unless you can provide more information about where you got the number from, I doubt we can find a geographic for you.

The St John Ambulance website has a list of local offices which may be able to help you find a geographic number. Try here for a list - http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/about-us/st-john-ambulance-in-your-area.aspx.

Let us know how you get on.

The number was on a memo which only had the fact that instead of calling 999 when requesting an ambulance from the NHS for attendance to a ST John covered event, we should now call the 0845 number.

I'm not sure if the number is specific to the SJA or is a country wide number to divert non-emergence calls away from 999.

I will try the main switch board tomorrow morning.

Thanks for your reply though.

G

The only thing I could find out on Google relating to the 0845 number was an article from the Wiltshire PCT regarding Access to Care - see http://www.wiltshirepct.nhs.uk/ReformingCommunityServices/RCSStepbyStepJune_Issue2.pdf. My advice would be to try ringing your local St John Ambulance centre and see what they say. If that doesn't yield any answers, try their head office in London.

Sorry, perhaps I didn't make myself clear.

I am a member of the St John and the memo was sent to all Divisional centres.

We have been told that should we require ambulance transport due to all our ambulances being off station, if the only SJA vehicle present is a 4x4 which can not transport spinal injuries or that the patient is suffering from a critical but not life threatening condition, instead of calling 999 we are now to use the 0845 number given at the top of this thread.

The number was past down to all SJA ambulance drivers (of which I am one) by my Divisional Super-Intendant.

I will try the SJA HQ switchboard tomorrow.

Regards,

G

Ah, that clarifies it somewhat. I'd speak to head office and ask them what the situation is with the 0845 number. It might also be worth asking them for the geographic alternative number, since I can only imagine it will be quite expensive for regional offices to be having to ring an 0845 number every time they need an extra ambulance!

The question is where does the 0845 number go? Is it local?

jgxenite's link suggests that it's not just for the SJA to use, so I would imagine that it is for your local ambulance service NHS trust. You've not said where you are and the only suggestion has been made by jgxenite that it is Wiltshire.....

If you used Google, then you must have input some of this info which we seek. Google finds pages that have what you put in the search box. So if you put the 0845 number into it, it will provide you with pages with the 0845 number on.

Is this any help to you?....

http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/counties/wiltshire.aspx

Sherbert, probably not. From my Google searches, the only document I could find relating to the 0845 number was the one I linked to above. That unfortunately does not give any further information as to what/where the 0845 number links to. Getanner said that they would speak to SJA HQ and see what they say about the number, so it is probably best to wait and see what reply we get from them.