24th April 2024
The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) Chair Michele Larmour visited the Northern Ireland Specialist Transport and Retrieval (NISTAR) service on Thursday 18th April. Michele was given an overview of the NISTAR service and visited Broadway Ambulance Station to meet some of the NIAS Ambulance Care Attendants who work as part of the NISTAR team.
Johnny McKillen took some time with Michele to demonstrate the NISTAR Children’s Ambulance, Northern Ireland’s first bespoke Children’s Ambulance, which was launched in January 2023 with the Children’s Heartbeat Trust. NISTAR provides critical care transport and repatriation for neonatal, paediatric and adult patients. Patients are managed by specialist clinical teams experienced in retrieval medicine. The service operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and completes approximately 1,400 critical care transfers annually.
NISTAR is hosted by the Belfast Health and Social and Care Trust (BHSCT) and works in partnership with NIAS to provide a regional critical care transport service. All transfers are completed by land using a fleet of specially adapted ambulances and staffed by 17 Ambulance Care Attendants from NIAS.
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- Johnny McKillen (Ambulance Care Attendant, NIAS), Michele Larmour (Chair, NIAS)
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- Johnny McKillen (Ambulance Care Attendant, NIAS), Julie Cruickshank (Ambulance Care Attendant, NIAS), Cara Barbour (Interim Lead Nurse, NISTAR), Michele Larmour (Chair, NIAS), Dr Alison Walker (Neonatal Clinical Lead, NISTAR), David Marshall (Service Manager, NISTAR), Dr Philip Gillen (Clinical Director, NISTAR)