Archived: Wealden Ambulance Services

Updated 10 March 2021

Wealden Ambulance Services is operated by Ms Judith Appleton. The service opened in 2017. It is an independent ambulance service in Battle, East Sussex. The service primarily serves the communities of East Sussex.

The managing director was the responsible individual.

The team that inspected the service comprised of a CQC inspection manager, one CQC inspector and a specialist advisor with expertise in patient transport services. The inspection team was overseen by Catherine Campbell, Head of Hospital Inspection.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

During the inspection, we visited the registered location. We spoke with the senior management team.

There were no special reviews or investigations of the service ongoing by the CQC at any time during the 12 months before this inspection. The provider has been inspected three times before the most recent inspection which took place on 10 December 2020.

As the provider had their registration with the Care Quality Commission suspended since the last inspection there is no data included in this report about patient journeys, safety incidents or complaints.

Updated 10 March 2021

Wealden Ambulance Services is operated by Ms Judith Appleton. The service provides a patient transport service.

Following the previous inspection on 10 December 2020, we suspended the registration of this service for eight weeks, to allow the service to make necessary improvements. This inspection was carried out to assess the changes made while the registration was suspended. We inspected this service using our focused inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection, giving 48 hours’ notice on 2 February 2021 and lifted the suspension of the registration with the Care Quality Commission. The provider had employed a consultant who had an expertise in supporting providers to gain compliance with Care Quality Commission regulations.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we normally ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? During this focused inspection we looked at part of the domain of safe and the whole domain of well led.

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

We found that:

• The inspection action plan had been reviewed in detail and had been used to drive improvement.
• All staff had completed a comprehensive suite of mandatory training. The training was in line with skills for health training. The training included mental health training. The provider had completed a training matrix to monitor staff compliance.
• Working with the consultant, the provider had developed a risk register which identified the current risks within the service. Each risk had a weighting and was a standard agenda item on the management meeting.
• A patient acceptance criteria and assessment process had been developed.

However:

• Policies needed further improvement to ensure they reflected current national guidance and the activity of the service.

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (London and South), on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 10 March 2021

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The inspection action plan had been reviewed in detail and had been used to drive improvement.
• All staff had completed a comprehensive suite of mandatory training. The training was in line with skills for health training. The training included mental health training. The provider had completed a training matrix to monitor staff compliance.
• Working with the consultant, the provider had developed a risk register which identified the current risks within the service. Each risk had a weighting and was a standard agenda item on the management meeting.
• A patient acceptance criteria and assessment process had been developed.

However, we found the following issue that the service provider needs to improve:

• Policies needed further improvement to ensure they reflected current national guidance and the activity of the service.