Guidance

Ambulance Service (Emergency Duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal: guidance for ambulance services

Published 22 October 2024

Introduction

This guidance has been drafted for and issued to the relevant ambulance services, covering the UK and Crown Dependencies.

This guidance was created with the aim to provide greater transparency and clarity to the changes to the Royal Warrant for the Ambulance Service (Emergency Duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal, which was updated in October 2024.

The Ambulance Service (Emergency Duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal has existed since 1995 to recognise and reward the hard work and dedication of staff. 

The October 2024 update to the Royal Warrant officially:

• extends role eligibility and the qualifying service criteria, so that it better recognises the complexity and range of staff roles, professions and career routes employed in modern day ambulance services
• ensures that the medal, in line with other emergency services, now recognises staff who reach career milestones of not only 20 years but also 30 and 40 years

All previously awarded medals made under the 1995 Royal Warrant remain valid.

Eligibility criteria

Service eligibility

The award is available to full-time and part-time (or an aggregate of full-time and part-time) service by employed members of any of the following:

• NHS ambulance trusts or NHS foundation trusts in England and Wales
• the Scottish Ambulance Service NHS Trust in Scotland
• the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland
• the ambulance services in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands

Employed members of independent or voluntary ambulance services are not eligible for the award.

The award will not be awarded retrospectively to retired staff. However, it is available to all eligible staff who were in service on or after the date of the introduction of the award (22 October 2024) and have since retired.

Role eligibility

Staff performing ‘emergency duties’ as a core part of their role are eligible for the award, where ‘emergency duties’ is defined as the requirement to provide an on-site incident response or support the delivery of on-site incident responses to calls arising unexpectedly and requiring an urgent or immediate reaction by the ambulance service.

The following list of staff roles eligible for the award is non-exhaustive:

• staff directly engaged in the provision of a frontline emergency or urgent face-to-face response to patients. Example of roles include: paramedics, nurses, technicians, emergency medical assistants and urgent care practitioners
• staff directly engaged in the provision of activities required to answer emergency calls, undertake telephone triage of emergency calls, dispatch emergency and urgent care response vehicles, provide clinical advice directly to patients or support safe management of clinical calls as part of their core duties. Examples of roles include: emergency call handlers, dispatchers, clinical advisers, paramedics and nurses
• staff directly involved in the management or clinical leadership of the emergency services and emergency operations control activities as listed above

Staff holding management, clinical leadership or training positions but who are no longer involved in the direct delivery of emergency functions will be considered eligible as long as the individual can demonstrate prior service in the categories defined above. Examples of this include:

• staff directly involved in providing on-call commander cover for the emergency service command structure
• staff involved in emergency planning and responses (including hazardous area response teams and specialist operations response teams)
• staff involved in professional clinical leadership or patient safety activity
• staff involved in training

In cases where eligible staff are required to change or move roles as a result of a work-related injury or illness, ambulance trusts may wish to consider a larger range of eligible roles (including non-emergency roles). In such circumstances, an injury or illness will be defined as work related by the ambulance service and certified by a trust-appointed medical practitioner.

Qualifying service

The minimum qualifying service length for the medal is 20 years. The minimum qualifying service length for the award clasps is 30 and 40 years.

Qualifying service begins when an individual first starts an emergency duty role (as set out under ‘Role eligibility’ above). Qualifying service length continues to be accrued while they are in service and, if interrupted, continues when they return to service.

For further clarification, the following shall be treated as qualifying service:

• time spent on maternity, paternity and adoption leave, up to the maximum period in contractual arrangements
• time spent on disability or sick leave
• any period of part-time service
• service on emergency duties prior to 1 April 1974 in ambulance services maintained by local authorities in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland

Time spent on career breaks shall not be treated as qualifying service.

Qualifying service cannot be transferred and continued from prior military service or other emergency services (for instance, individuals transferring from police to ambulance services).

Certificate of efficiency

The award shall be made on the recommendation of the Chief Officer who shall certify that the individual’s character and conduct have been very good.

Where the individual concerned is a Chief Officer, the recommendation and certification shall be made by the chair of the appropriate authority. It will be for the chair to satisfy themselves of the individual’s fitness for the award, with reference to the individual’s personnel records, including any appraisal reports. This certification should be set out in a letter and signed by the appropriate officer.

When the individuals are being assessed for an award of the medal, their character throughout the whole period of qualifying service should be considered. Staff should not be debarred from receiving the medal solely on account of trivial breach of discipline, if it has been followed by many years of praiseworthy conduct.

Registration

The names of all those to whom the medal and clasps are awarded shall be recorded, as the case may be, in the:

• Department of Health and Social Care
• Scottish Home and Health Department
• Welsh Government
• Department of Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland

Delegated powers

Delegated powers to make the award shall be vested, as the case may be, in the:

• Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (England)
• Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care (Scotland)
• Minister for Health and Social Services (Wales)
• Health Minister (Northern Ireland)

Other awards

The grant of any unofficial or local long service or good conduct medals or clasps for wear by staff in the ambulance service engaged in emergency duties shall be discontinued, and any unofficial or local long service medals or clasps, if already granted, shall not be worn by recipients of the Ambulance Services (Emergency Duties) Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.

Forfeiture and restoration

Those listed under ‘Delegated powers’, as the case may be, in relation to the ambulance services in their respective jurisdiction, shall have the power to cancel and annul the conferment of the medal on any person and also to restore the medal that has been so forfeited.