The Care Quality Commission
  • Ambulance service

Archived: The Event Medicine Company

Overall: Good read more about inspection ratings

Unit D, Central Estate, Albert Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, GU11 1SZ (01252) 313005

Provided and run by:
The Event Medicine Company Ltd

All Inspections

3 July 2019

During a routine inspection

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

5 December 2017

During a routine inspection

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 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 5 December 2017.

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?

Services we do not rate

We regulate independent ambulance services but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate them. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

We found the following areas of good practice:

  • Staff had a good understanding of and followed safety processes such as safeguarding procedures, infection and prevention practices and incident reporting processes.
  • The condition of vehicles and equipment were monitored, serviced and maintained to ensure safety. There was sufficient equipment at all times to deliver the service.
  • There were sufficient staff with the relevant skills to deliver the service.
  • The ordering, receipt, storage, administration and disposal of medicines was managed safely. Staff took responsibility to ensure their professional skills were up to date in order to provide a safe and effective service.
  • The service had policies and procedures in line with national guidelines, which they reviewed as a minimum every three years.
  • The service engaged and coordinated their work with other organisations, including event organisers, local health care providers and local authorities to ensure delivery of a safe and effective service that met their contractual agreements. This included meeting the urgent health care needs of people attending events and where appropriate conveying them to acute health care facilities.
  • Leadership of the service promoted a positive culture that supported and valued staff.
  • The service had systems to identify risks and plan to eliminate or reduce those risks. They reviewed events collaboratively with event organisers in order to monitor the quality of the services provided and identify areas of improvements.

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

  • Assurance processes were not fully established. There was lack of assurance that; staff were up to date with their mandatory and essential training from their main place of work; that staff had completed appropriate safeguarding training for adults and children and young people; that staff provided care and treatment to children and young people that met national guidance; that all staff followed infection prevention and control processes and used personal protective equipment appropriately.
  • Appraisal processes were not fully developed and implemented.
  • The new electronic system for recording staff recruitment, training and allocation of work duties did not fully assure the Event Medical Company Ltd (EMC) that all staff allocated to carry out work duties had the relevant skills and experience.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with one requirement notice.  Details are at the end of the report.

Professor Ted Baker

Chief Inspector of Hospitals