Lancashire HQ

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• Overview
• Person-centred Care
• Care provision, Integration and continuity
• Providing Information
• Listening to and involving people
• Equity in access
• Equity in experiences and outcomes

We looked for evidence that people and communities were always at the centre of how care was planned and delivered. We checked that the health and care needs of people and communities were understood, and they were actively involved in planning care that met these needs. We also looked for evidence that people could access care in ways that met their personal circumstances and protected equality characteristics.

This is the first assessment for this service. This key question has been rated requires improvement. This meant people’s needs were not always met through good organisation and delivery.

This service scored 46 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

The service did not make sure people were at the centre of their care and treatment choices and they did not work in partnership with people, to decide how to respond to any relevant changes in people’s needs.

We reviewed the Duty of Care Policy and the De-escalation, Control and Restraint Policy. We did not see any clear guidance on how to provide support tailored specifically to the needs of the mental health service user group and ensure patients were always at the centre of their care. The policies did not relate solely to the provision of mental health transport care.

There were some shortfalls in how the service understood the diverse health and care needs of people and their local communities, so care was not always joined-up, flexible or supportive of choice and continuity.

Staff told us that some needs may not be able to be met, for example where there were individuals who needed to communicate by sign language. Staff told us the service would only transport patients when they knew they had the appropriate skill set to care for them. Care was not always supportive of individual needs, however we heard that where shortfalls were consistently identified a review of skills and training requirements would be undertaken. We saw that some communication aids such as flash cards were available for use.

We did not gather enough evidence to report on this quality statement.

The service did not always make it easy for people to share feedback and ideas, or raise complaints about their care, treatment and support. Staff did not always involve people in decisions about their care or tell them what had changed as a result.

The service provided feedback forms to all partner organisations when completing jobs. We reviewed completed forms and saw tick boxes confirming aspects of service provision had been completed. Where appropriate feedback forms were also provided to patients. We were not provided with any patient feedback.

The service had not received any complaints. There was a complaints policy in place. There was no information provided within the ambulances regarding making complaints. There was no detail on the service website regarding how to make a complaint.

There was a clear process for responding to complaints with expected timescales and advice on where to raise complaints externally should a complainant not be satisfied with the outcome. However, this included advice to contact the Care Quality Commission in the event that a complainant was not satisfied. This was incorrect advice.

The service did not always make sure that people could access the care, support and treatment they needed when they needed it.

Staff told us that they did not discriminate at all. The service was available 24 hours a day. We understood that journeys of over 2 hours were not felt to be beneficial for the patient, therefore this was not part of the services current provision. We did not see any evidence of standard operating procedure confirming this.

Equality and diversity was included on the providers list of training included within the induction. We saw that staff had completed this training.

Staff and leaders actively listened to information about people who are most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes and tailored their care, support and treatment in response to this.

Staff told us that autism awareness training was completed. We saw evidence of this on the staff training matrix. However, this training was not included on the list of mandatory training that staff must complete within the Induction Policy or on the Staff Training and Development document we were provided with.

We saw that ‘dementia patients’ was included as a topic of training in the training document. We saw that staff had completed dementia awareness training.

We did not see any evidence of adjustments that may be made to support those most likely to experience inequality in experience or outcomes.