Archived: The Event Medicine Company

Updated 30 August 2019

The Event Medicine Company is operated by The Event Medicine Company Ltd. The registered manager, Dr Brian Robertson, founded the service in 2002. The Event Medicine Company was registered with the CQC in October 2015. The service headquarters is in Aldershot Hampshire; however, the service have healthcare professionals on their books providing an independent medical and paramedic service all over the United Kingdom to adults and children. The service covers a range of events from small village fetes and corporate entertainment events, to large-scale sporting events such as triathlon and equestrian events and major air shows. The service did not have any substantive contracts, they sourced work by tendering for contracts for individual events or a group of events. The service included emergency and urgent care and some conveyancing of patients to acute hospital settings.

The CQC does not have powers to regulate medical and paramedical care and treatment provided at events.

The service has had a registered manager in post since October 2015.

The service was last inspected in December 2017 at which time the CQC did not have the legal duty to rate independent ambulance services. Following the 2017 inspection we told the provider to address some areas of concern where the service was not meeting regulations. The issues raised related to assurances that all staff have the required skills and competencies and were suitable to work in a health care environment. Staff must be up to date with their mandatory and essential training from their main place of work; assurance that staff had completed appropriate safeguarding training for adults and children and young people; assurance that staff provide care and treatment to children and young people that meets national guidance; and assurance that all staff followed infection prevention and control processes and used personal protective equipment appropriately.

The provider supplied an action plan to address these concerns.

Updated 30 August 2019

The Event Medicine Company is operated by The Event Medicine Company Ltd. The Event Medicine Company provides medical and paramedical services to events of all types and sizes, which includes emergency and urgent care, including some conveyance of patients to acute hospital settings.

The CQC does not have powers to regulate medical and paramedical care and treatment provided at events.

This report details our findings about the care and treatment provided to patients when conveyed from event sites to acute hospital settings.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the inspection on 3 July 2019.

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? Where we have a legal duty to do so we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.

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 last inspected this service in December 2017 but at the time we did not have the legal duty to rate independent ambulance services.

The regulated activity provided by this service was emergency and urgent care.

We rated this service as Good overall because:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records. They managed medicines well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.

• Staff provided good care and treatment and managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and competence of staff. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients, supported them to make decisions about their care, and had access to good information

• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their privacy and dignity, took account of their individual needs, and helped them understand their conditions.

• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for event organisers to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait for treatment.

Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work.  Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and the community to plan and manage services and all staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

• There were some lapses in attention to cleaning arrangements and waste management.

• There were no safety straps in the ambulance to ensure children were secure on the stretcher during transfer to hospital.

• The service had very few complaints, but they should respond within the timescales written in the complaints procedure, and provide information regarding making a complaint on the ambulance.

Following this inspection, we told the provider they should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Nigel Acheson

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 30 August 2019

The Event Medicine Company provides medical care for events, which the CQC do not regulate. The service does however provide emergency care for patients and transfers to hospital from events when necessary, which CQC does regulate. The staff are employed on zero hours contracts and sign up to provide care when available.

The service works with event organisers to provide the correct level of cover, staff and skill mix to ensure the safety of the attendees.

We found that the service provided safe effective care with good organisational leadership.