Alpha Care Ambulance Service

Updated 30 September 2026

Alpha Care Ambulance Service is operated by Alpha Care Ambulance Service Limited. The service opened in 2001 and is an independent ambulance service based in Moulsford, Oxfordshire.

The service provided patient transport services across Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It primarily transported patients on behalf of NHS trusts, local authority social services and schools supporting children with special educational needs. The service also provided medical cover at events and, where necessary, transferred patients requiring urgent or emergency care to local NHS trusts.

Between June 2025 and May 2026, the service transported 2,967 patients and completed 1 emergency transfer to a local NHS trust. The processes and policies for patient transport services and emergency and urgent care were the same. Given that there had been only 1 emergency and urgent care patient transfer in the previous 12 months, findings relating to this service have been reported within the relevant sections of the patient transport services report.

At the time of our assessment, the service employed 10 permanent members of staff and was actively recruiting a further 5 staff. Leaders also maintained a bank workforce, which they used primarily to support event medical cover and provide additional operational capacity when required.

We carried out this assessment as a follow-up to our previous assessment in November 2021, when we rated the service as requires improvement and identified breaches of regulations relating to safe care and treatment, good governance and safe staffing. During this assessment, we reviewed all 5 key questions and the associated quality statements using our comprehensive assessment approach.

During this assessment, we found the service had taken appropriate action to address the breaches relating to safe care and treatment and safe staffing. However, we found the provider remained in breach of regulations relating to good governance.

Overall, the service's rating improved from requires improvement to good.

Updated 31 March 2026

This assessment was a comprehensive assessment of the patient transport service provided by Alpha Care Ambulance Service. The service provided patient transport on behalf of NHS trusts, local authority social services and schools for children with special educational needs and emergency and urgent care services. Between June 2025 and May 2026, the service transported 2,967 patients and completed 1 emergency transfer to a local NHS trust. The processes and policies for patient transport services and emergency and urgent care were the same. Given that there had been only 1 emergency and urgent care patient transfer in the previous 12 months, findings relating to this service have been reported within the relevant sections of the patient transport services report.

We carried out this assessment as a follow-up to our previous assessment in November 2021, when we rated the service as requires improvement and identified breaches of Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), Regulation 17 (good governance) and Regulation 18 (safe staffing). We assessed the service using our comprehensive assessment methodology and reviewed all 5 key questions and associated quality statements.

During the assessment, we visited the service's registered location in Moulsford, Oxfordshire, and observed an ambulance crew transporting a child from their home to school. We spoke with staff and leaders and reviewed patient feedback, training records, policies, governance arrangements and performance data. This enabled us to assess the quality, safety and effectiveness of the service.

Since our previous assessment, the service had taken action to address the breaches of Regulation 12 and Regulation 18. However, the service remained in breach of Regulation 17, as governance and oversight systems did not consistently identify, monitor and address risks. Despite this, the overall rating improved to good, reflecting the progress made since the previous assessment.

While leaders had strengthened governance arrangements, some aspects of oversight and monitoring required further development to provide greater confidence that risks were consistently identified and managed. We found concerns relating to safeguarding information, equipment and vehicle readiness, environmental safety, infection prevention and control, recruitment records, driver compliance and the management of controlled drugs. Leaders took prompt action to address a number of these issues following the assessment. Further embedding of governance, audit and quality assurance processes would support continued improvement and strengthen oversight across the service.

However, since the previous assessment, the service had made several improvements, including increased compliance with training requirements, strengthened clinical supervision arrangements, improvements to medical gas storage, the introduction of temperature monitoring for medicines storage areas, regular governance meetings, and processes requiring staff to read, understand and acknowledge relevant policies and procedures.

Updated 9 March 2022

We rated it as requires improvement because:

• Equipment checks and documentation were not always fully completed effectively as we found a number of out of date items.
• The organisation did not always have clear governance structures in place to ensure oversight of services, training was not always up-to-date.
• There was a lack of assurance that performance was being monitored effectively.
• There was no official documentation of supervision.
• There was no date for when a risk was added to the risk register.

However:

• The service had enough staff for the current workload 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.
• The service-controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients, acted on them and kept good care records.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills.

The provider was registered with CQC to carry out the regulated activity treatment of disease, disorder or injury so they could provide the core service emergency and urgent care. At the time of the inspection they had not delivered any emergency and urgent care. However, as the service had registered to carry out the regulated activity treatment of disease, disorder or injury in order to provide an emergency an urgent care service, it was expected that processes should be in place to be followed by staff to enable this service to be carried out safely.

Urgent and emergency care is a small proportion of the services activity. The main service was Patient Transport Services. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the Patient Transport Services section.