Data and maps could hold the secret to better care for older people who need an ambulance

A new collaboration between researchers in Southampton and South Central Ambulance Service has the potential to cut long waiting times for older people.

National Health Service (NHS) ambulance services are under intense pressure. Immediately life-threatening conditions are prioritised, and older people who fall and or have serious symptoms from a long-term illness with lower category calls may experience long delays before an ambulance arrives.

Making maps of who uses healthcare services and where they live is a technique used by emergency services to understand patterns of ambulance use, to monitor ambulance response times and to identify vulnerable communities.

This new approach by a team from the National Institute for Health and Care Research* (NIHR ARC Wessex) adds to those maps by including detail of what help and services are available to older people – particularly those with dementia.

South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) covers a population of more than four million people across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. Older people are the subject of 48% of 999 calls; an average of 21,200 per month.

Over a year the research team gathered anonymous data from SCAS looking at the details of 999 calls made for older people (those over 65). It created maps from that data looking at the characteristics of people living in that area, number of calls, dementia cases and how many people were taken to hospital.

The maps and data showed a surprising difference across the region in how many older people were taken to hospital by ambulance – ranging from 28 per cent to 100 per cent. The numbers taken to hospital in Buckinghamshire were higher compared to the south coast and part of north Oxfordshire.

Emergency calls corresponded with populations of older people. More deprived areas were urban – like Portsmouth, Southampton, Reading, Slough and Milton Keynes – but there were also rural areas the New Forest.  Those areas had higher number of emergency calls for older people. Response times also varied.

Working with SCAS, the researchers looked at what else could be added to the maps to help understand the patterns of calls and ambulance care. Future maps could include services which can provide care to older adults other than hospitals, and where community first responders are located.

The team are now looking at refining the information displayed in the maps and explore how factors like levels of deprivation and the help available for older people in the local area might influence the need for emergency care and the consequences of an ambulance visit, such as being taken to hospital.

Dr Carole Fogg from the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton has spent more than 20 years as a researcher specialising in older people and dementia. She said:

“It is more important than ever to understand the care needs of vulnerable older people in our communities. The population is getting older as people live for longer with multiple conditions including memory loss and dementia, and there is ever-increasing demand for emergency care which may require an ambulance

Understanding how many people need urgent care in a particular area and what happens to patients after they are seen by paramedics is important to be able to plan health and social care services for older people in different areas. This research shows we can help with that.”

Professor Charles Deakin is the Divisional Medical Director and Research Lead at South Central Ambulance Service:

“In our role as care navigator, we work hard to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right time from the right people.

We are excited by the potential these maps offer to quickly identify regional disparities in need and service provision. This would enable us to then work with our partners to provide parity of integrated care to our older population”.

The result of this research study are published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) https://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/14/2/e002977

REF: Carole Fogg, Phil King, Vivienne Parsons, Nicola Dunbar, Marcel Woutersen, Julia Branson, Helen Pocock, Patryk Jadzinski, Chloe Lofthouse-Jones, Bronagh Walsh, Dianna Smith - Exploring the potential of geospatial mapping of emergency call data to improve ambulance services for older adults: a feasibility study in the south central region of England: BMJ Open Quality 2025;14:e002977.