Archived: UK Event Medical Services Limited Sheffield

Updated 23 July 2018

UK Event Medical Services Limited Sheffield is operated by UK Event Medical Services Limited. The service opened in 2002. It is an independent ambulance service in Sheffield in South Yorkshire. The service primarily serves the communities of the Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster and Hull, but does operate throughout the UK.

At the time of the inspection, UK Event Medical Services Limited Sheffield had a new team of directors who had been in post since September 2017. The service held a contract with an NHS provider for non-urgent transfers of patients from hospitals, home and care facilities. They also held a contract to move patients in urgent need of care, for example, from their home to a hospital, on the basis of GP referrals. They were in the process of establishing new contracts for patient transport services for other local NHS providers.

The service has had a registered manager in post since 2011. At the time of the inspection, the provider was in the process of registering a new manager who had recently been appointed to the board of directors.

Updated 23 July 2018

UK Event Medical Services Limited Sheffield is operated by UK Event Medical Services Limited. The company provides emergency and urgent care and a patient transport service. They also provide medical cover at public and private events. We did not inspect this part of the service as it is not currently a regulated activity.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 16 May 2018.

To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led?

Throughout the inspection, we took account of what people told us and how the provider understood and complied with the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

The main service provided was patient transport services. Emergency and urgent services were a small proportion of activity; therefore we have reported our findings in relation to the urgent and emergency services in the patient transport services section.

Services we do not rate

We regulate independent ambulance services but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate them. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• Staff were committed to providing the best quality care to patients. Staff displayed a caring and compassionate attitude and took pride in the service they were providing.

• Staff checked patients’ requirements prior to transporting them to ensure they were able to meet their needs.

• Staff followed evidence-based care and treatment and nationally recognised best practice guidance.

• The management team had taken action to improve governance and risk management systems within the past six months.

• There were effective policies and procedures for safeguarding issues to be identified and referred for investigation by relevant, external organisations.

• There were effective systems for reporting and investigating incidents; the provider learnt from incident investigations, for example, by making changes to equipment or care protocols.

• Vehicles and stations were visibly clean and tidy, with evidence of regular deep cleaning of vehicles.

• Relevant background checks had been carried out during recruitment processes. This included, for example, a full Disclosure and Barring Service and a driving licence check.

• We observed good multidisciplinary working between crews and other NHS staff when moving patients.

• The management team worked with local NHS providers to supply services which met the needs of local people.

However, we also found the following issues that the service provider needs to improve:

• Our review of patient record forms on GP urgent care journeys found that the records were not always complete; the records did not always indicate what actions staff had taken to mitigate identified risks.

• Some systems for identifiying and disposing of out-of-date stock and sharps waste, had not been fully implemented.

• Some staff were not able to recall the information provided to them as part of a training programme. For example, not all staff could recall having had training in the Duty of candour.

• The systems for storing medicines needed to be reviewed to confirm that medicines were kept safely at all times.

• The provider did not currently check that all relevant staff had been immunised with selected vaccines, such as Hepatitis B, which may be appropriate for their role.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve.

Ellen Armistead

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