UK Event Medical Services Limited

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• Overview
• Learning culture
• Safe systems, pathways and transitions
• Safeguarding
• Involving people to manage risks
• Safe environments
• Safe and effective staffing
• Infection prevention and control
• Medicines optimisation

The service had effective processes in place for incident management, safeguarding, infection prevention and control, and the safe transfer of patients. Staff understood how to identify and escalate risks, and learning from incidents was shared appropriately. However, improvements were required in recruitment governance and environmental safety. The provider was unable to demonstrate consistent compliance with its recruitment policy in relation to DBS risk assessments and assurance of staff competence. In addition, concerns were identified regarding the storage of oxygen cylinders, medicines management and the security of clinical waste. These issues meant the service could not demonstrate that all safety risks were consistently identified, assessed and managed.

This is the first assessment of the provider under the current registration.

We have not awarded this service a score for Safe.

Find out about when we will not publish a key question score and what we look at when we assess Safe.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service. Please refer to the patient transport services report for further details.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service but also undertook emergency work through the local commissioning NHS ambulance trusts. The provider had designated urgent and emergency crews available up to technician level. Patients were assessed prior to crew allocation as there was a clear criterion for accepting patients as suitable for the available resources.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service. Please refer to the patient transport services report for further details.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service but also undertook emergency work through the local commissioning NHS ambulance trusts. The provider had designated urgent and emergency crews available up to technician level. The commissioning NHS ambulance trusts would ensure that all allocated work was appropriate for the skill mix and vehicle availability. All staff were empowered to undertake dynamic risk assessments and to escalate any issues to both the ambulance trusts and their own senior leaders.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service. Please refer to the patient transport services report for further details.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service. Please refer to the patient transport services report for further details. The provider did employ ambulance crew up to technician level and all training was completed appropriately to this level.

Patient transport services constituted the provider's primary service. Please refer to the patient transport services report for further details.

The service did not consistently store and manage medicines safely or in accordance with its local standard operating procedures. We found medicines were not securely controlled, with partially used blister packs mixed between different boxes, resulting in discrepancies between the labelled and actual quantities. Staff told us blister packs were routinely removed from their original packaging and placed into smaller bags for use on vehicles due to storage limitations, a process undertaken by operational staff rather than pharmacy personnel.

Medicines stock records were inaccurate, with multiple discrepancies between recorded and actual stock levels, and some medicines, including water for injections, were stored but not recorded on the stock log. The paper-based stock management system was poorly organised and difficult to follow, increasing the risk of errors.

In addition, the service undertook routine medicines audits to provide assurance that medicines were being stored, recorded and managed safely but due to the issues identified we were not assured that the audit process was effective.

Oxygen was used onboard vehicles, and staff were appropriately trained in medical gas administration.