England's Chief Inspector of Hospitals has told East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust that it must make improvements following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission.
East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust was rated as Requires Improvement overall following an inspection which took place in March this year.
The trust was rated as Outstanding for whether its services were caring and Requires Improvement for whether its services were safe, effective well-led and responsive.
This means the trust’s ratings remain unchanged since CQC’s previous inspection in April 2017.
CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Ted Baker, said:
“Our inspectors found some progress had been made at the East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust, since our previous inspection, but that a number of improvements were still clearly needed.
“We found improvements had been made with regard to safeguarding, staff understanding of the Mental Capacity Act and incident reporting procedures. But the trust still did not meet national ambulance response standards and over the winter period delays resulted in a number of serious incidents.
“We were also concerned that, at the time of our inspection, staff morale was low. People working at the trust described a culture of late shift finishes, frustration at not being able to provide the service they wanted to due to pressures on the trust and disengagement between front line staff and the senior management team. People said they did not always feel valued, particularly after what had been an exhausting winter.
“However, we found a number of areas of outstanding practice and that staff were overwhelmingly caring and dedicated to providing the best care they could to patients. People who used the service also gave positive feedback.
“We fed our findings back to the trust immediately after our inspection, citing the areas where improvements must be made as a priority, and we have been monitoring the trust, working closely with NHS Improvement and other stakeholders, to help drive through improvements.
“The trust leadership knows what action it must take to bring about improvement and we will return to inspect and check on its progress.”
CQC’s inspection team informed the trust of its findings immediately after the inspection so that it could take steps to make any improvements.
There are several areas where improvements must be made, including that the trust must improve its performance and response times for emergency calls and ensure processes and procedures are consistently applied across the trust.
Risk registers must be reviewed and staff must be appropriately mentored and supported to carry out their roles.
Inspectors also witnessed outstanding practice across the trust including a clinical app which gave staff an excellent resource for ensuring they had the most up to date clinical guidance and access to information about care pathways in different areas of the trust.
An escalation policy to reduce the times in handover delays had been introduced and, while this had been introduced late in winter, it was seen as good practice to have an identified escalation tool in place. Additionally, the trust had introduced a Patient Safety Intervention Team (PSIT) to ensure that handover delays were minimised.
The Freedom to Speak Up Guardians were passionate about giving staff support to raise concerns and have them addressed, and they were supported by the board in their work.
The East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust is one of ten ambulance trusts in England providing emergency medical services to Bedfordshire,
Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk; an area which has a population of around six million. The trust employs around 4,000 staff and 1,500 volunteers.
Ends
For further information, please contact Louise Grifferty on 07717 422917.
Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team here.
Please note: the press office is unable to advise members of the public on health or social care matters. For general enquiries, please call 03000 61 61 61.
Our inspectors found some progress had been made...but that a number of improvements were still clearly needed
Professor Ted Baker, Chief Inspector of Hospitals