Archived: Air Med Transport Limited

Air Med Transport Limited is operated by Air Med transport Limited. The service provides a patient transport service.

We inspected this service using our focused inspection methodology. We reviewed two of the five questions, are they safe and well-led? We did not review the questions, are they caring, effective and responsive to people's needs.This inspection was to follow up concerns from our inspection of the service on 27 November 2019, when we suspended the service.

The service provided patient transport, including transporting persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.

We rated this service as Inadequate overall.

We found the following issues the service provider needs to improve:

• The service did not always provide mandatory training in key skills to staff. Driver training was not always provided by an accredited provider. Staff had not received training in the use of hard handcuffs, patient moving and handling and other mandatory training such as infection prevention and control. Staff had completed safeguarding training, but this was not level two safeguarding training.
• Staff Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks were in progress but not completed.
• Staff records did not always include pre-employment checks; such as an application form or references.
• The service did not always control infection risk well. Staff did not always keep vehicles visibly clean.
• The lack of maintenance of vehicles and equipment put people at risk of avoidable harm.
• Processes to assess and respond to patient risk were unsafe.
• Policies available to staff were not always in line with best practice guidelines or reviewed regularly.
• The service did not keep individual care records for patients. Staff did not always complete records accurately.
• The provider did not appropriately manage patient safety incidents. The provider did not investigate incidents or share lessons learned with the whole team.

We found there had been some improvements since the last inspection on 27 November 2019:

• The provider had created an action plan to address staff mandatory training. This was still in progress at the time of the inspection. Staff had completed some mandatory training provided by an external company.
• The registered manager, who was safeguarding lead, had completed safeguarding level three training.
• The vehicle storage and cleaning areas were clean and tidy.
• The provider had booked a visit from an engineer to check the service’s equipment the week after the inspection.
• An ambulance was at a garage and some repairs of the vehicle had been carried out, including re-covering of seats and making sure there were no leaks in the external structure.
• The provider had developed an action plan to make the improvements needed. However, most of the actions were still not started or in the initial stages at the time of the inspection.

Following this inspection, we extended the suspension of this service until the provider could demonstrate that it had improved.

This service will continue to be in special measures.

Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate overall or for any key question or core service, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve. The service will be kept under review and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to vary the provider’s registration to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

Heidi Smoult

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Air Med Transport Limited is operated by Air Med transport Limited. The service provides a patient transport service.

We planned to inspect this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. However, this was changed to a focussed inspection as we could not make a full assessment of all areas of the service. We carried out a short term announced focussed inspection on 27 November 2019. We reviewed two of the five questions, are they safe and well-led? We did not review the questions, are they effective, caring and responsive to people's needs?

The service provided patient transport, including transporting persons detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.

We rated this service as Inadequate overall.

We found the following issues the service provider needs to improve:

• Driver training was not always provided by an accredited provider. Staff used hard handcuffs but the provider could not provide assurance handcuff training had been completed.

• The service did not control infection risk well. Staff did not keep premises, equipment and vehicles visibly clean.

• The maintenance of vehicles and equipment put people at risk of avoidable harm.

• Processes to assess and respond to patient risk were unsafe.

• Policies available to staff were not always up to date.

• Staff had training on how to recognise and report abuse but we could not assess if staff understood how to protect patients from abuse as we did not speak with any staff during the inspection.

• The safeguarding lead had not completed level three safeguarding training.

Following this inspection, we suspended this service until the provider could demonstrate that it had improved.

I am placing the service into special measures.

Services placed in special measures will be inspected again within six months. If insufficient improvements have been made such that there remains a rating of inadequate overall or for any key question or core service, we will take action in line with our enforcement procedures to begin the process of preventing the provider from operating the service. This will lead to cancelling their registration or to varying the terms of their registration within six months if they do not improve. The service will be kept under review and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to vary the provider’s registration to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

Heidi Smoult

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals, on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals