Cotswold Community Transport to the rescue!
Our service really came into its own in 2007 when Gloucestershire was hit by the worst floods it has seen for 100 years.
CCVS, who already provided nearly 200,000 miles worth of medical need journeys on behalf of the Ambulance Service, were asked to assist with the transportation of dialysis patients to centres in the West Midlands when Gloucester Royal Hospital was unable to provide the service due to the lack of freshwater.
Our Community Transport team uses bespoke software (Transys by KL2) designed as part of a pilot project with Great Western Ambulance Service. This meant that we were the only community transport provider in the county able to cope with the demands of the emergency. Our specialist knowledge meant that the coordination of efforts across the entire county could be done from our offices in Cirencester.
Not only were we able to maintain our daily operations (last year, across the Cotswold, Community Transport teams carried more than 77,000 passengers over 1 MILLION miles on medical and social need journeys) but operating around the clock during the two week period, where the flooding was at its worst, we were able to transport dialysis patients out of county in the early hours of the morning.
During that time, with a fleet of vehicles (many of them seconded from other charities) and a small army of volunteers from across the county, the Community Transport teams in Gloucestershire carried 908 dialysis patients a total of 12,600 miles for essential, life-saving, treatments.
