Scandal-hit ambulance trust given two months to improve
AN AMBULANCE trust at the centre of a scandal to delay response times has been ordered to make “significant improvements”.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) issued South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (Secamb) with a warning notice following an inspection in May.
The CQC said systems “to ensure enough staff are employed and deployed appropriately are not effective”, and “NHS 111 calls are not always responded to in a timely and effective manner”.
This follows exposure by The Daily Telegraph of an operation put in place last winter which forced high-risk cases in the South East automatically to wait up to twice as long for help if their call came via the 111 helpline.
The CQC also said that processes to ensure equipment is properly maintained and secured “are not adequate”, and that systems in place to manage medicines “are not operated safely and effectively”.
There were also inadequate processes to prevent people who use the service being abused, the regulator said, and poor governance to ensure services are monitored or improved.
Prof Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals, said: “People who rely on South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust are entitled to an ambulance service that is consistently safe, effective and responsive to their needs. On the evidence of our inspection, we have found that patients were not receiving the quality of care that they are entitled to expect, or within the timescales required.” The trust has until Sept 10 to address concerns.
It was annuunced in March that Paul Sutton, chief executive of Secamb, had “left to pursue other interests”. He had been under pressure to resign after it emerged that he ordered the scheme which saw deliberate delays for thousands of patients.
Under NHS rules, calls designated as “life-threatening” should receive an ambulance response within eight minutes, whether the caller contacted 999 or 111. But the ambulance trust invented its own system to “stop the clock” and routinely downgraded 111 calls.
Geraint Davies, acting chief executive of Secamb, said: “The trust is sorry for not providing the service that the communities we serve should expect and deserve. Following the inspection, we have been working hard to address the issues raised and will continue to do so over the coming months.”