- Ambulance service
Inter-County Ambulance Services Limited
Assessment report published 13 October 2026
Contents
Ratings
Our view of the service
Date of assessment: 3 June 2026.
Inter-County Ambulance Service Ltd is an independent ambulance service founded in 1972. The service primarily provided patient transport services and also delivered emergency and urgent inter-hospital transfers.
In the 12 months prior to our inspection, 86% of the service's activity related to patient transport services, with the remaining 14% comprising emergency and urgent care transfers.
The service was staffed by trained paramedics, ambulance technicians, emergency care assistants and ambulance care assistants. It operated 4 ambulance vehicles.
The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to carry out the following regulated activities:
- Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
- Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
We carried out a comprehensive announced inspection of the service on 3 June 2026. The service was previously inspected in June 2019 and was rated Requires Improvement. At that inspection, we identified breaches of Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment), Regulation 17 (Good governance) and Regulation 18 (Staffing). In January 2020, we carried out a focused inspection to review the concerns identified at the previous inspection. We found improvements had been made; however, the service was not re-rated.
During our inspection in June 2026, we identified breaches of the following regulations:
- Regulation 17: Good governance
- Regulation 13: Safeguarding service users from abuse and improper treatment
- Regulation 12: Safe care and treatment
- Regulation 15: Premises and equipment
Following this inspection, we told the service that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations. We issued the service with a warning notice that affected patient transport services and emergency and urgent care services.
In instances where CQC has begun a process of regulatory action, we may publish this information on our website after any representations and/or appeals have been concluded, if the action has been taken forward.