We have been privileged to have had the assistance of volunteer car drivers for almost 20 years across the entire West Midlands Region but, today, they are only operational in Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire.
There are 11 volunteer car drivers operating in the West Midlands and in 2024-2025 they completed over 8,000 patient journeys supporting the work of our non-emergency Patient Transport Services.
Volunteer car drivers are particularly beneficial for long distance journeys when our patients have hospital appointments outside of the West Midlands area as well as providing transport for our regular patients. The volunteers are solely used to help transport our PTS patients who require little or no medical intervention.
William Read is a retired Emergency Planning Officer and a member of the Valuation Tribunal for England. He’s volunteered as a car driver for West Midlands Ambulance Service for over seven years and works within Cheshire.
My longest, and most memorable journey, was a 300 mile return trip from Wilmslow to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge with a patient who had undergone a number of organ transplants.