- Ambulance service
Transcare Secure Services - Birmingham
Assessment report published 10 November 2025
Contents
Ratings - Patient transport services
Our view of the service
We rated the patient transport service as requires improvement overall. We rated effective and well-led as requires improvement and safe, caring and responsive as good. Safety was prioritised, the environment was safe and visibly clean, and the service had enough staff to ensure patients were cared for and kept safe and risks were assessed. However, there were concerns identified around medicine management. There was no plan in place for monitoring the effectiveness of the service and not all staff were identified as being competent to deliver all aspects of care. However, patients' needs were assessed, and their transfer reflected their needs. Staff worked in harmony and patients were at the centre of their care. We were unable to assess first-hand how staff treated patients as no transfers took place during our onsite assessment. However, the feedback received by the service was positive and demonstrated that staff were kind and caring. Patients had access to the care and treatment they required and accessed it in ways that met their personal circumstances. The service did not have effective governance systems in place. However, leaders were approachable and there was a positive culture which was focused on continuous learning and improvement. Following the assessment, a warning notice under section 29 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 was issued. This was because the service had failed to comply with the relevant requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Effective systems to ensure the safe management of medicines was not in place and the service had failed to establish systems to ensure the safe recruitment of staff. This was because systems were not in place to ensure Disclosure and Barring Service checks were carried out for all prospective staff. Regulation 17 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.
People's experience of this service
We were unable to observe care and treatment during our onsite assessment due to there being no transfer during this time. This meant we were unable to gather the views and feedback from patients who used the service themselves. However, we reviewed the feedback which the service had gathered and found that the feedback was largely positive with words such as “amazing”, “caring” and “well supported” used to describe the service that patients had received. The service had also started to gather feedback from stakeholders who used the service to provide care and treatment for their patients. They were equally as positive about the service with feedback observing how respectful and kind they were with patients.