UK Event Medical Services Limited

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• Overview
• Assessing needs
• Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
• How staff, teams and services work together
• Supporting people to live healthier lives
• Monitoring and improving outcomes
• Consent to care and treatment

We looked for evidence that patients and communities had the best possible outcomes because their needs were assessed. We checked that patient’s care, support and treatment reflected these needs and any protected equality characteristics, ensuring patient were at the centre of their care. We also looked for evidence that leaders instilled a culture of improvement, where understanding current outcomes and exploring best practice was part of their everyday work.

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

We have not awarded this service a score for Effective.

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

Staff shared key information to keep patients safe when handing over their care to others. They knew what journeys they were to undertake and which patients they would be picking up and taking onwards to appointments or returning home. Shift changes and handovers included all necessary key information to keep patients safe.

Staff took account of patient’s communication needs, particularly those with disabilities and with a sensory loss. We observed staff using appropriate skills to engage with patients and to assess their needs. They also took account of cultural and social needs when planning patient related transport activities.

We saw that patient record forms contained prompts to allow for effective assessment of patient need such as interpretation needs.

Staff followed up-to-date policies to plan and deliver high quality. All policies we looked at contained a creation and review date, and clear references to current national guidelines. There were systems to communicate changes in guidance through meetings and management newsletters. Staff said they received information via email and contact with team leaders

We looked at the pathway for people who were frequent attendees of the local hospital and relied on the ambulance service to get to and from appointments. We found that 90% of patients were on time for appointments.

There were suitable protocols available for children of all ages and other patient groups, such as patients living with mental ill health.

On longer journeys, staff made sure patients had access to drinks and food, if necessary.

We reviewed 10 number of patient transport records and found no errors or omissions in all 10 records.

Staff worked together as a team to benefit patients. They supported each other to provide good care and deliver a quality service, ensuring for example, they started their shifts on time and planned the route of patient collection to maximise efficiency.

Staff reported healthy working relations with external organisations they came into regular contact with. For example, all staff spoke positively of their relationships with local hospital and ambulance trusts

Managers had fully considered staff welfare. For example, they advised and encouraged drivers not to work second jobs and to rest in between shifts. There was a health and safety policy, which set out responsibilities at all levels.

Discharge and transport arrangements considered people’s individual needs, circumstances and ongoing care arrangements. Information was shared between teams and services to ensure continuity of care.

Due to the nature of the service and the activities undertaken, opportunities for delivering health promotion interventions were limited.

The service had systems to monitor and improve outcomes. Managers reviewed and ensured the service met all their key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets. Wherever possible managers sought their commissioner’s performance data to monitor and improve patient outcomes.

We saw that the service held regular meetings with external stakeholders in which key performance data was shared. The most recent data showed that the service was achieving 85% or better in all KPI metrics relating to service effectiveness.

The provider considered health inequalities and took steps to ensure outcomes across people with protected characteristics were in line with the wider community.

The service monitored and reacted to avoidable incidents of harm. Learning from investigations was shared with the aim of making improvements, for example, when errors in assessment had been identified following investigation, the service ensured that all staff were able to access additional training.

Staff completed Mental Capacity Act (MCA) and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) training modules as part of their care certificate completion. Office staff flagged any capacity issues with patients at the booking stage.

Staff took all practicable steps to give people the appropriate information, support and time to make an informed decision in a way they could understand, including use of accessible communication formats. Staff followed national guidance to gain patients’ consent. Staff knew how to support patients who lacked capacity to make their own decisions or were experiencing mental ill health.

Staff understood how and when to assess whether a patient had the capacity to make decisions about their care. Staff followed the services policies related to consent, mental capacity, deprivation of liberty and restrictive practice, as relevant. We saw that consent and capacity was considered and recorded in all 10 patient records that were reviewed.

Staff understood when restraint could be used under the Mental Capacity Act and could describe the principles of least restrictive practice

Where specific requests had been made by patients, for a same sex health care professional this was discussed and provided whenever possible, we saw examples of this with journeys undertaken for patients living with mental ill health, we were also told that chaperones would be offered on all appropriate journeys if required.

Interpreters were used to support patients to give informed consent, including for BSL and face to face interpreting when necessary.

Staff sought permission before sharing patient information with family or friends.