AN EMERGENCY service has bucked a national financial trend by staying in the black when others are in a funding crisis.

Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust’s annual general meeting, at York Racecourse, revealed the 999 organisation delivered a £2.7 million surplus in 2016/17 - one of only a handful of NHS groups nationally to do so in a troubling year.

Mark Bradley, the ambulance service’s executive director of finance, said that while the trust did not achieve the required £5.1 million surplus target it was set, it did not drop into the red and was able to post positive results.

He told the meeting: “We didn’t deliver the £5.1 million we were set, but we did deliver a surplus and that strong financial performance has moved us into 2017/18.”

The last financial year saw the service’s 'income' drop to £255.4 million, £6.2 million down compared to 2015/16.

Mr Bradley said the largest spend is on staff at £164 million, while 70.9 per cent of the trust's income goes into accident and emergency.

Kathryn Lavery, chairman of Yorkshire Ambulance Service, praised the workforce for what she said was a ‘good year’.

She pointed out the service has moved far beyond the idea some members of the public still have of ambulance crews simply turning up to accidents and taking people to hospital.

“We are so much more than that and this year has embodied that in the NHS itself,” Mrs Lavery said.

She added: “We won’t be arrogant enough to say this year has been wall to wall success, but it has been a good year.

“It was a year of pressures, not least financial woes, and financial pressures are with us all in the NHS.”

Rod Barnes, chief executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service, spoke at the meeting about how the trust had performed throughout the year.

Mr Barnes said the biggest achievement was the trust’s Care Quality Commission inspection, which gave it an overall rating of ‘good'. The rating comes after the trust had been rated ‘requires improvement’ in 2015.

He said: “There was a huge effort from the inspection we had in 2015 when the CQC came in at a time when the service was close to being on its knees.

“It has been an organisational response and has relied on the staff.”

The trust placed a large emphasis on training members of the public in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a bid to save more lives.

Mr Barnes said 50,000 people received training and the trust’s community first responders, who attend incidents as volunteers, attended 22,000 calls and 22 people were saved after suffering cardiac arrest.