ERS Medical North East

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• Overview
• Kindness, compassion and dignity
• Treating people as individuals
• Independence, choice and control
• Responding to people’s immediate needs
• Workforce wellbeing and enablement

We looked for evidence that people were always treated with kindness, empathy and compassion. We checked that people’s privacy and dignity was respected, that they understood that they and their experience of how they were treated and supported mattered. We also looked for evidence that every effort was made to take people’s wishes into account and respect their choices, to achieve the best possible outcomes for them.

This was the first rated assessment for this service. This key question has been rated good.

This means that people were treated with kindness, compassion, dignity and respect.

This service scored 75 (out of 100) for this area. Find out what we look at when we assess this area and How we calculate these scores.

We always treat people with kindness, empathy and compassion and we respect their privacy and dignity. We treat colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service always treated people with kindness, empathy and compassion and respected their privacy and dignity. Staff treated colleagues from other organisations with kindness and respect.

The service stated aims were to provide ‘…levels of care, treatment, respect and continual wellbeing for all patients and users of the services it provides and makes a commitment to ensure that the products and services provided are consistently delivered, available and provided at the highest levels possible’.

To achieve this, the service was open and transparent with its service users and promoted a respectful and caring culture through effective management, training, and awareness.

There were various methods on display for service users to give feedback, such as telephone numbers, postal and email addresses, onboard surveys and crew personal digital assistants (PDAs), and QR codes. All onboard completed surveys reviewed showed positive scores and comments.

Further behavioural competences had been developed for staff to encourage the understanding of service user’s individual needs, communicate with clarity and empathy, and ensure a positive interaction. We saw staff used these to support service users and give advice at the time they needed it. Service users said staff treated them well and behaved appropriately towards them.

Feedback from service users showed staff understood their individual needs, including their personal, cultural, social and religious needs. Mechanisms were in place for staff to raise concerns about disrespectful, discriminatory or abusive behaviour towards users of the service.

Processes were in place to ensure staff maintained the confidentiality of information about service users. These had been reinforced through induction and ongoing training.

We treat people as individuals and make sure their care, support and treatment meets their needs and preferences, taking account of their strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service treated people as individuals and made sure people’s care, support and treatment met people’s needs and preferences. They took account of people’s strengths, abilities, aspirations, culture and unique backgrounds and protected characteristics.

Feedback from service users gave examples of staff treating people as individuals, establishing rapport, caring attitudes and professionalism. We were given specific examples which highlighted how staff had assisted people in their admission to hospital, their discharge from hospital, their support for people with specific needs such as dementia, and by being adaptable to reduce stress and confusion.

During the booking process we saw the service user, their carer or representative was asked to identify whether they required additional assistance such as an escort for medical reasons. For example, this may be due to anxiety, a lack of understanding of their condition or an advocate to frailty. The escort was a family member, carer or anyone who supported the service user on a regular basis.

Service users, their carers or representative were also asked about their mobility so the right transport for their needs was available, for example a stretcher, wheelchair or if they had their own wheelchair or frame. For example, one family shared their positive recent experience:

‘… that all staff that they have come into contact with have been fantastic, very helpful and kind. … requires transport by stretcher, on arrival at the family home, the staff did not have a ramp with them meaning the patient could not leave his home.’

‘The manager was able to deliver a ramp to the home quite quickly to help get the patient to his appointment.’

We promote people’s independence, so they know their rights and have choice and control over their own care, treatment. and wellbeing.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service promoted people’s independence, so people knew their rights and had choice and control over their own care, treatment and wellbeing.

The service made adjustments for individual service users – for example, by ensuring people’s access to their home address, hospitals and other premises was made as easy as possible. Staff identified the communications needs of service users through cards in a range of languages, asking them to point to their preferred language; the card read ‘We are from the ambulance service, please point to your language.’

We observed call handling staff gaining consent from service users and a patient representative consent form was also available so that informed decisions could be made. Completed patient record forms documented how staff took an individual’s personal circumstances into account for transport.

We listen to and understand people’s needs, views and wishes. We respond to these in that moment and will act to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service listened to and understood people’s needs, views and wishes. Staff responded to people’s needs in the moment and acted to minimise any discomfort, concern or distress.

Staff had training in recognizing risk issues. They were aware of and dealt with any specific risk issues, such as falls or pressure ulcers and took these into account when undertaking transport. Staff identified and responded to changing risks to service users. For example, we were given feedback from a staff nurse in the discharge lounge who had been assisted by transport staff to reassure and calm a dementia service user who had become physically and verbally aggressive.

The crew worked with hospital staff in a compassionate way, enabling the patient to receive immediate personal care in an appropriate way. Service user feedback commented on the ability of the staff to ease concerns.

We care about and promote the wellbeing of our staff, and we support and enable them to always deliver person centred care.

We scored the service as 3. The evidence showed a good standard. The service cared about and promoted the wellbeing of their staff and supported and enabled staff to always deliver person-centred care.

The service told us about mechanisms they had in place to ensure staff safety and wellbeing. All staff said they felt respected, supported and valued; we saw there were various recognition schemes to acknowledge the work staff had done, for example the ‘shining star’ award, and long service awards.

Staff felt positive working for the service and their team, all said they were doing work which provided an essential service for the community.

Staff had access to support from an external company for their own physical and emotional health needs and were given time to recover from traumatic and difficult transport journeys. A 24-hour employee assistance programme was in place, and we saw there was a designated mental health first aider available. The service was proactive in promoting employee wellbeing and as an example had recently introduced a new menopause policy.

The service identified learning from journeys which had been difficult and shared this with the team. Staff received regular feedback on their performance throughout the year through a range of feedback mechanisms.