Enabling an NHS Trust To Lead On Fleet Electrification

Mer’s mission is to make sustainable mobility accessible to everyone. That's why Mer supported Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust with its fleet transition to electric vehicles (EVs) by installing EV charging infrastructure.

Two people standing by electric vehicle charge point

Our National Health Service (NHS) provides a comprehensive service, available to all.

The NHS is founded on a common set of principles and values that bind together the communities and people it serves – patients and public – and the staff who work for it. Its commitment to working together for patients, respect and dignity, commitment to quality of care, compassion, improving lives, and recognising everyone counts are the values the NHS stand by.

Mer’s mission is to make sustainable mobility accessible to everyone; recognising everyone does count. It is no surprise with such an alignment for inclusivity that Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust chose Mer to support its fleet transition to electric vehicles (EVs) by installing EV charging infrastructure.

What We Did

Mer has installed EV charging infrastructure across 13 sites for Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust to support its fleet electrification goals.

The Brief

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW Foundation Trust) wanted to increase the number of chargers on sites across the region. This was to support the electrification of its own fleet vehicles, encourage more staff to use EVs, and provide charging facilities for visitors and service users.

NTW Solutions is the entity established by the Trust to provide cost-effective and quality support services across more than 60 Trust sites. This includes estates and facilities management, car leasing, finance, workforce and procurement services. NTW Solutions runs a fleet of 1,400 lease cars for Trust employees as well as around 90 service vehicles ranging from pool cars to vans and trucks.

Mer won a competitive tender to deliver the charge points after meeting all the key criteria. One of the main priorities for the Trust was the ability to set different tariffs – free charging for fleet vehicles, a preferential rate for staff, and a higher rate for visitors.

The Solution

EV charging design experts from Mer carried out surveys on all 13 sites to identify the best charging infrastructure for each location and the most cost-effective way to implement it.

Mer provided smart chargers with multiple tariff capabilities in line with the requirements from NTW Solutions, as well as a back-office software platform that provides the company with the data analytics it needs.

Mer have been fantastic; they have gone above and beyond in terms of customer service. Working with them has significantly increased the speed of electrification and the decarbonisation of our fleet.

Lee Cant, Commercial Director of NTW Solutions

Lee Cant, Commercial Director of NTW Solutions, said: “We benchmark ourselves against other trusts in the region and we know that we are out in front in terms of fleet electrification, thanks in part to this project.

“It was imperative that we could set different rates for public charging, staff charging, and also for our fleet service vehicles. It was important to be able to differentiate for different use cases and also to have different methods of accessing the chargers, from contactless payment to RFID cards and key fobs.

“We were also keen on having a viable management system that we could extract data from, in order to ascertain which chargers were the most popular and identify where we might need additional infrastructure to meet demand.

“Mer have been fantastic; they have gone above and beyond in terms of customer service. Working with them has significantly increased the speed of electrification and the decarbonisation of our fleet.”

“It has enabled us to change our policy so that all new vehicles added to the fleet have to be electric unless there is a very good operational reason why they can’t be EV.”