Ambu Kare UK - Westwood Farm

Updated 1 November 2018

Ambu-Kare - Westwood Farm is operated by Ambu-Kare (UK) Limited and has been providing services since 1984. It is an independent ambulance service based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The service primarily serves the communities of the Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and the surrounding counties, providing non-emergency patient transport services to the public and private sector. This includes picking up and dropping off service users from their own homes or care home to the local NHS trust.

The service has had the current registered manager, who performs the operational manager role, in post since 2007.

The service was last inspected on 8 June 2017 but not rated and a further unannounced inspection was carried out on 26 June 2017.

Updated 1 November 2018

Ambu-Kare UK - Westwood Farm is operated by Ambu-Kare (UK) Limited. The service provides a patient transport service to a local NHS trust and occasional private transfers.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 24 September 2018.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and 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.

The main service provided by this service was non-emergency patient transport services (PTS)

We found the following areas of good practice:

• The service maintained up to date policies and procedures, this was an improvement from our last inspection.
• The service had implemented a risk register, and reviewed this regularly, this was an improvement from our last inspection.
• Staff had received the necessary pre-employment and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks.
• Staff we spoke with during our inspection knew how to recognise and refer safeguarding concerns and had access to up to date policies for safeguarding adults and children.
• Vehicles we inspected were clean and well maintained and there were processes in place to ensure the cleanliness of the vehicles and equipment.
• Patient feedback was positive, staff we spoke with showed caring attitudes in relation to meeting the needs of service users and were passionate about their role in the service.

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

• The service had no formal process or flow chart for staff to follow if a patient’s condition should deteriorate during a journey.
• Oxygen bottles were not secured within the ambulance station and there was no formal policy for its use or storage within the service. We spoke to the provider on the 26 September 2018 who confirmed that from 1 October 2018 they will no longer provide transfers where patients require oxygen and arranged for safe disposal of the existing oxygen stock.
• We found six consumable items out of date, a broken lid on a contaminated waste bin and no hand sanitizer on the vehicles we inspected. The provider acted to remedy these at the time of our inspection.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve.

Professor Ted Baker

Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 1 November 2018

The main service provided was none emergency patient transport.

We rated the service as good for being safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led because there were systems in place to ensure staff received relevant training, vehicles were clean and there were generally appropriate policies and processes in place to support the delivery of safe patient care. Patient feedback was positive and staff described an open and caring culture and felt valued in their role.

We also found areas for improvement in terms of oxygen storage and lack of formalised guidance for escalation of patients who may deteriorate during a journey.