Kent Central Ambulance Service Ltd

Updated 28 February 2022

Kent Central Ambulance Service Ltd is operated by Kent Central Ambulance Service Ltd. The service provides patient transport services and emergency and urgent care services.

The main service this location provides is patient transport services. NHS non-emergency patient transport services help people access healthcare in England. It is free at the point of use for patients who meet certain medical criteria and are unable to use public or other transport. This service is subcontracted to provide support to primary contract holders that supply this service to the people in Maidstone and the surrounding area including parts of London.

The service also provides high dependency transfers for patients travelling between hospitals. This is the only aspect of the service that is provided under emergency and urgent care.

This service was first inspected using our comprehensive inspection methodology in May 2019, where we found regulation breaches in the well-led question that required the provider to comply with actions related to those breaches. The provider has now met all the compliance actions.

The service has had a registered manager since November 2018. The provider is registered to undertake the following regulated activity:

• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

From January 2021 to January 2022, the provider completed 34,487 patient journeys.

We previously rated the patient transport service as good for safe, effective, caring and responsive and requires improvement for well led. The overall rating in May 2019 was good.

We did a short notice announced inspection of this location’s patient transport service to see if changed practices were embedded. We inspected well-led and some aspects of safe. We did not inspect effective, caring and responsive. We rated the service as good for well-led and we did not rate safe. The overall rating for the service was good.

Updated 28 February 2022

Our rating of this location stayed the same. We rated it as good because:

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service managed safety incidents well and learned lessons from them.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. They understood and managed the priorities and issues the service faced. They were visible and approachable in the service for patients and staff. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work. Staff felt supported and valued, and they focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff at all levels were clear about their roles and accountabilities. The service engaged well with patients and stakeholders to plan and manage services. Staff were committed to improving services continually.

However:

• The service did not use a standardised risk assessment tool where a disclosure and barring service check identified a record of concern.

We rated this service as good because it was well-led. We inspected safe but did not rate it. We did not inspect nor rate effective, caring and responsive.

Updated 28 February 2022

Our rating of this service stayed the same. We rated it as good. Please see the overall summary for details.

Updated 29 July 2019

Urgent and emergency services were a small proportion of activity. The main service was patient transport services. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the patient transport services section.

The service provided high dependency transfers for patients that needed to travel between hospitals. These patients due to their needs could not travel with a patient transport service.