13 May 2015
During an inspection looking at part of the service
Intrim Medical and Rescue Services Regional HQ and Training Centre is run by Intrim Medical & Rescue Services Limited. The service is an independent ambulance service who offers patient transport services for adults and children including mental health transfers, emergency medical cover and transport for events and repatriation.
We announced the visit to the provider with two days’ notice, and visited on 13 May 2015. At the time of our visit, there were two ambulances and a rapid response vehicle in use.
We carried out this inspection was to check if suitable actions had been taken to the compliance actions we identified on our visit to the service on 21 October 2014. At this visit we found some concerns with the systems and processes in place to manage the risk of the spread of infection, we found some out of date equipment and the storage of medical gases was not suitable.
At this visit we found inadequate systems in place to ensure there was suitable and safe equipment available. To protect patients from the risk of unsafe care and treatment we considered that urgent enforcement action was required.
On Friday 15th May, we presented an application under section 30 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to Nottingham Magistrates Court to urgently cancel the registration of Intrim Medical and Rescue Services. This order was granted and the registration of the provider was cancelled with immediate effect.
Our key findings were as follows:
- Systems were not in place to ensure the risk of the spread of infection was being effectively managed.
- There was insufficient provision of safe and suitable equipment. This included some life preserving equipment and meant patients may not have received the care they needed. This meant there was a risk to patient’s life, health, or well-being.
- Medications were not always suitably stored or obtained and we also found medicines that had past their expiry date.
- The provider did not have processes and systems in place to monitor the quality of the service provided. This meant there were no actions taken to suitably equip ambulances and ensure that equipment was safe for use.