Northern Ireland Ambulance Service or NIAS was created on April 1, 1995 and is the national ambulance service of the entire Northern Ireland. The same with other UK Ambulance Services, NAIS does not directly charge its patients because it is funded by the general tax. It efficiently responds to emergency calls and has over 270 vehicles.
Presently, the Service employs 850 staff assigned across 32 stations and sub-stations, 2 Control Centers and a Regional Training Center. There are approximately 120,000 emergency calls annually the service responds to; their traditional ambulances have 2 staffs and the Rapid Response Vehicles are crewed b ay paramedic.
Also, the Service owns a fleet of Patient Care Service which are important in transferring patients to and/or from hospitals, or when there are inter-hospital transfers, or GP urgent admissions to hospitals. In the PCS, there are single-crewed sitting case vehicles and double-crewed intermediate care vehicles that have stretcher.
