Following a heroic battle with cancer, it is with great sadness that we announce the death of Roy Wallis, our dear colleague and friend. Roy was admitted to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital with pneumonia but in accordance with his wishes, an EEAST crew took him home which is where he wanted to spend his remaining days with his wife and family.
We in Resilience and Special Operations will always have fond memories of the time we spent with him with his endless stories and wealth of knowledge of the ambulance service, and in particular, emergency preparedness.
Although he formally retired in November 2008, Roy continued to work part-time with the ambulance service. Indeed on the day he was taken ill, he was returning from Hellesdon where he worked as a Resilience Advisor.
Previously he had been a part of the service for some 34 years, employed mainly within operations at various levels from road staff to senior management level. He remained an operational state registered paramedic and attended incidents in a patient care role as and when required until his retirement. Roy had a regional responsibility for the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridge as the Resilience and Contingency Planning Team Lead ensuring the major emergency preparedness for the Trust, including CBRN; and had a responsibility for the Trust-wide business continuity planning again via the Trust resilience team.
Roy was married with two children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.
1973 Qualified as an Ambulanceman at the Leicestershire Ambulance Service having completed the Millar Certificate where he received the award for top student of the course
1974 Transferred to Norfolk Ambulance Service at Cromer
1988 Promoted to Leading Ambulance Man at Cromer
1988 Qualified as a Paramedic
1989 Became part of the Vehicle and Equipment Working Group
1992 Promoted to Group Station Officer Paramedic for the Northern Group with the additional responsibility for public support unit training
1999 Promoted to County Commander; during this time responsible for the placement of Community Paramedics in some 25 GP surgeries across Norfolk, and responsible for setting up the first response posts across Norfolk to facilitate the 8 minute deployment plan
2004 Seconded to Anglian Medical Care as Operations Manager to set up the operational GP bases and ECP resources
2005 Resilience and Contingency Planning Manager
2008 Voluntary Retirement
Returned as an Emergency Planning Advisor (bank)
A full Ambulance Service funeral will be held at Norwich Cathedral on Wednesday, October 9 at 2pm, and will be followed by a wake at the Holiday Inn North near Norwich Airport.
Roy’s family have asked for family flowers only, but donations to the charity Brain Tumour UK would be welcomed.