Funding to upgrade ambulance fleet

Yorkshire Ambulance Service will receive £6.4m of additional funding as part of a national programme of fleet investment for ambulance services. The money, from NHS England, will enable the Trust to invest in 41 new diesel ambulances, decommissioning older vehicles and replacing them with new converted Fiat Ducatos.

The funding also includes investment in five new electric ambulances, which will join the Trust’s fleet of 35 fully electric non-emergency Patient Transport Service vehicles, believed to be the UK’s largest fleet to date.

This funding enables the Trust to accelerate its fleet replacement programme by purchasing these vehicles, over and above the annual replacement plan, which currently sees 73 vehicles replaced each year. This will help to bring down the average age of the fleet and will increase the fleet overall by two vehicles to 514.

Kathryn Vause, Executive Director of Finance at Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said: “With this additional funding, we will be able to replace more of our existing older fleet than planned. This means we have newer vehicles in operation, which should reduce the higher levels of maintenance and vehicle downtime that is associated with running older vehicles.

“The benefits of reduced maintenance costs, reduced fuel consumption and reduced numbers of hours a vehicle is off the road will ultimately benefit our patients and our staff.”

The vehicles are expected to be delivered by the end of March 2026.