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All Emergency walkthroughs
Ambulance walkthrough

Ambulance cover, from the make-ready bay to the readiness pack.

Thirteen films. Eleven follow one ambulance service: three emergency ambulances and a relief unit at Kestrel Bay, and a volunteer branch at Gull Point. The last two follow a patient transport operator in New South Wales and five operators in other markets, each with its own rules. The crew’s phone and the dashboard play together, chapter by chapter.

Film 3 of 13: The monitor fails

A failed self-test takes 413 off run on the spot. A spare goes on and passes, the officer signs the defect closed, and the record shows cover reduced for six minutes.

In this filmThe monitor fails

413’s monitor fails its self-test mid-morning. Watch 413 come off run, a spare go on, and cover come back six minutes later.

A safety notice’s daily test
The self-test fails
Off run, and Reduced
A spare on
The spare tested
Resolved: six minutes
The safety notice
0:00 / 2:01

413’s monitor fails its self-test mid-morning. Watch 413 come off run, a spare go on, and cover come back six minutes later.

  1. A safety notice’s daily test. 09:04, between cases. A safety notice names 413’s monitor, so 413 carries the notice’s daily test as a second check. Priya scans 413’s tag. The monitor and defibrillator daily test sits beside the start of shift check. Kestrel Bay is Ready: 411, 413 and 414 in cover.
  2. The self-test fails. The item asks for a photo of the self-test. This morning it fails. That fail is set to take 413 off run: a critical defect the moment it lands. Each answer keeps its template version; the photo is stamped with time, position and heading.
  3. Off run, and Reduced. 413 is off run and its device check failed. Two of three in cover: Kestrel Bay is Reduced, both reasons shown. The change opens with its cause in the board’s own words, and officers get a dashboard alert. Priya takes the failed monitor off 413 on her phone. The register now shows it back at the station.
  4. A spare on. Put a spare on lists 413’s own station first. Priya finds the spare monitor by its serial. Moved. The register now has SP1 on 413 and 0413 at the station. The spare has not had today’s check either, so Clinical equipment now names SP1.
  5. The spare tested. Priya runs the daily test again, on the spare. It passes. The check records the device’s daily user check, so Clinical equipment clears. 413 stays off run: the critical defect is open until an officer resolves it.
  6. Resolved: six minutes. Grace Okoro, the duty officer, opens the defect, records what was done to fix it, and signs to close it. The defect is resolved. 413 is back on run and In cover, and Kestrel Bay is Ready at 09:11. Reduced for six minutes, 09:05 to 09:11, with the cause, the alert and the restore all kept.
  7. The safety notice. The notice lists every unit it matched in the equipment register, by maker, model, software version and serial. Grace records 0413 removed from service. The extra test stays on each affected vehicle until its unit is actioned. Escudo Emergency records the notice and the actions. It never decides whether a device is safe to use.

Illustrated from the real crew app and dashboard, with ambulance switched on. Kestrel Bay uses the operator pack, set by the service; Marlow Point uses the NSW pack, and the last film shows the Tasmania, Queensland, Singapore, New Zealand, Victoria and South Australia packs, some with values to confirm. Cover plans, turnaround times, clean windows, reserve levels, cache and drill intervals, limits and wording are set by each service. The board shows cover by the service’s own records. There are no patient records, no medicine counts or balances, no staff health information and no ruling on any licence, approval, contract or standard. Alerts appear in the dashboard. People, services, units, hospitals and reference numbers are invented.

Options and solutions

Everything ambulance brings, in one place.

An organisation’s administrator switches ambulance on in Settings. Every Escudo Emergency check keeps working alongside it, including the 56 starter templates for ambulance and patient transport.

What the cover board counts

UnitsUnits in cover against the plan, tier by tier.
CrewSeats filled by people whose competencies and credentials are current.
Clinical equipmentDevice checks done today, and devices in date and in service.
Kits and medicines storageKits sealed, broken seals replaced, fridges in service.
Infection controlNo unit held for decontamination.
Documents and approvalsThe documents, licences and approvals the station’s rule pack names, on file and in date.
Stock and reservesReserve items at par and above the days of cover you set; caches counted on time.
TurnaroundUnits at hospital no longer than the station’s turnaround time, where the station records hospital times.

Each station is Ready, Reduced, Not ready or Not set against the shift’s plan, and each unit In cover, In cover (limited), Not in cover, Held, Deployed or Spare, with every reason in plain words. A unit that can fill several tiers goes to the scarcest one first. Changes not acknowledged go to fleet managers after 15 minutes and to org admins after 60, unless the rule pack sets other times.

What a unit can be counted as

Each capability can name the equipment it needs; while that is not on the unit and ready, the capability is lost. Bariatric carries a capacity in kilograms.

  • Emergency ambulance
  • Intensive care
  • Extended care
  • High acuity transport
  • Stretcher transport
  • Wheelchair transport
  • Seated transport
  • Bariatric
  • Paediatric
  • Neonatal
  • Four-wheel drive
  • Two-stretcher (MCI)
  • Motorcycle
  • Bicycle

Seats and credentials

Each seat names the competencies it needs and the credentials that must be in date. An Australian registration is noted from 60 days before 30 November and still counts through its late period in December.

  • Registration
  • Practising certificate
  • Recertification
  • Driving record check
  • Driver authority

Rule packs

Each station chooses a pack. Values marked to confirm are confirmed with each customer before they are relied on.

  • NSW non-emergency transport providers. Vehicle age with a risk assessment past 5 years, and the engineer’s, restraint and 240 V outlet certificates on each vehicle. The private patient transport starter checks the amber beacon and that no siren is fitted. The pack lists records under the headings of NSW Health PD2024_008.
  • Victoria non-emergency patient transport (to confirm). The kilometre limit with exemptions, and two-person crews for regulated transports. The pack lists records under the subjects of the 2026 regulations.
  • Tasmania non-emergency patient transport. The patient transport licence with a renewal reminder 120 days out, two crew, and records under the regulations’ headings.
  • South Australia restricted ambulance service licence (to confirm). The licence with a renewal reminder 90 days out; the rest set by the service.
  • Queensland and ACT approvals. The approvals each Act names: in Queensland the s 43 approval and the s 48 authority to use “Ambulance”; in the ACT the event approval and the insurance certificate. Kept with their dates, and records under each Act’s sections.
  • New Zealand road ambulance (to confirm). Double crewing, practising certificates from 1 April to 31 March, and records under the NZS 8156:2019 clause headings.
  • Singapore emergency ambulance and medical transport (to confirm). Crew of two with a crew leader, the licence, crew training every six months (a year for medical transport) and recertification every two years, and records under the licence conditions.
  • Operator rules (set by the service). For services and markets no checkable public instrument covers. Sets nothing itself: the pack lists records under the board’s own lanes.

Operations

  • Deployment, mutual aid, event cover and activation. Take their units out of station cover until they end or the unit is released.
  • Move-up. Counts its units at the station they cover.
  • Exercise, drill and occurrence. Records: units taking part stay in cover.

Station reserves are counted against par and the days of cover you set, never medicines. Caches are counted by two people; with the WHO Emergency Medical Team pack, items under 6 months to expiry are noted. Holds (Infectious decontamination, Hazardous materials decontamination, CBRN decontamination, Biohazard clean) are cleared only on an officer’s signed clean.

8 drills in the library

Vehicle, equipment and operations drills, copied in as drafts for your own words and interval. Runs are recorded and signed on the phone.

  • Two-stretcher conversion
  • Mass casualty incident: first crew on scene
  • Mass casualty cache activation
  • CBRN protective clothing donning and doffing
  • Vehicle decontamination after a contaminated patient
  • Powered stretcher or loader failure: manual load
  • Bariatric patient move and load
  • Radio and data failure fallback
Ambulance coverEach station Ready, Reduced, Not ready or Not set against the shift’s plan, tiers, eight lanes and each unit with its seats.
Open changesEach change with its cause, acknowledged with what is being done and who was advised, and escalated if nobody does.
Set up coverCover plans by shift, planned reductions, unit capabilities, seats and their credentials, crew mix rules, licences and approvals, hospital times and the clean window.
Ambulance operationsDeployments, move-ups and exercises, station reserves, caches counted by two people, and equipment left at a hospital.
Ambulance insightsCover against plan, unit hours lost by cause, off road now, device checks, seal breaks, expiries and the 1 December cliff.
Ambulance readiness packOne station over any period, under the rule pack’s headings, printable, with the SHA-256 of its data.
People and licencesEach person’s registrations, practising certificates, recertifications and driving record checks, with their dates and a scan.
Safety noticesRecalls and alerts matched to the equipment register, with the extra test each adds until its unit is actioned.
Drills and exercisesLibrary drills in your own words and intervals, runs recorded and signed on the phone, and the drill pack with its SHA-256.

What Escudo Emergency never does

Records only. Escudo Emergency keeps the records, works out the board and reminds people. Clinical governance, infection control and medicines management stay with your own procedures. More on ambulance and patient transport.

  • Record a patient, a case or why a crew was called: times, units and the hospital’s name only
  • Hold drug balances, medicine counts or Schedule 8 registers: a seal number and an earliest expiry
  • Hold staff health information: registrations and certificates are credentials, never medical records
  • Rule on a licence, approval, contract or standard: the pack lists records under the headings
  • Set your cover plan, turnaround time, clean window, cache count interval or drill interval
  • Say anyone is trained or competent: a drill record says what was done, by whom and when
  • Import from a dispatch system or a monitor, or send push or SMS alerts: alerts are in the dashboard
  • Decide whether a device is safe to use: a safety notice’s actions are recorded, never judged

See it with your own stations

Send us your start of shift check and a station’s cover plan. We will set up a station with ambulance switched on and show you the board working.

Or email us: info@escudoready.com

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