Dedicated ambulance launched to support end-of-life care in Bradford and Craven

Patients in Bradford and Craven will now be supported by a dedicated palliative and end-of-life ambulance, which is being provided by Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) and funded by Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership.

The new service will transport palliative and end-of-life patients between hospital, hospice and home, helping reduce delays for people receiving palliative care or approaching the end of life. The new service is available seven days a week, between 9am and 7pm and is provided by Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service (NEPTS) staff from YAS.

Claire Craft, Consultant Paramedic and Palliative and End of Life lead for the Trust said: “For a patient approaching the end of their life, a timely journey home or to a hospice can make an enormous difference to them and the people close to them.  This service supports people to reach their preferred place of care with dignity and compassion."

Dr Sohail Abbas, Deputy Medical Director at NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and Clinical Director for Bradford District and Craven Place Integrator, said: “This new service will support the NHS shift from ‘hospital to community’ by enabling timely discharge and transfer of patients who are approaching end of life to home or hospice, improving choice for patients and their families, while freeing up capacity in acute hospitals.

“The service will prioritise support for hospital discharges and end of life transfers, avoiding delays which can compromise patient care and patient and family experience, and disrupt the system’s ability to support a patient’s preferred place of death.”

As well as improving patient experience and transporting patients in a more timely manner, the service will support more timely discharges of patients and transfers, helping to free-up beds within hospitals, when patients don’t wish to stay in hospital. The dedicated ambulance will also free up other emergency ambulances from these journeys, to enable them to respond to higher acuity calls and improve response times for patients across the area.

The new service builds on the success of the existing end-of-life service which has been operating in Leeds for 10 years.

During the 12 months to the end of May 2026, YAS received over 6,100 calls relating to palliative care patients, with 704 patients taken to hospices and 347 patients taken to an emergency department.