Archived: East Anglia Medical care Ltd Also known as Brockford Garage

Updated 18 January 2019

East Anglia Medical Care Ltd (Brockford Garage) (EAMC) is operated by East Anglia Medical Care Ltd. The service opened in July 2017. It is an independent ambulance service in Stowmarket, Suffolk.

The service has had a registered manager in post since July 2017.

The service provides the regulated activity of transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

This service is registered with CQC under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 in respect of some, but not all, of the services it provides. There are some exemptions from regulation by CQC which relate to particular types of service and these are set out in Schedule 2 of The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

EAMC provides services to patients taking part in or attending a sport or cultural event. These types of arrangements are exempt by law from CQC regulation. Therefore, at EAMC, the services provided to patients taking part in or attending a sport or cultural event were not inspected.

Updated 18 January 2019

East Anglia Medical Care Ltd (Brockford Garage) is operated by East Anglia Medical Care Ltd. East Anglia Medical Care Ltd (Brockford Garage) is the location of rented office space and is the registered location of East Anglia Medical Care Ltd (EAMC). The service assesses and provides emergency medical treatment to visitors, staff and event participants at sporting events. The service has two emergency ambulances for the transfer of patients to hospital, one rapid response vehicle to transport patients from where they were injured at events to the medical tent, and one patient transport service vehicle which is used to transport volunteer staff to events.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the short notice announced part of the inspection on 25th October 2018, along with a telephone interview with the registered manager on 2nd November 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 emergency and urgent care through the provision of first aid medical cover for weekend only sporting events. The service also transports patients from events to hospital in the event of a medical emergency. This falls under the scope of regulation.

Services we rate

Due to the limited regulated activity performed by this provider, we felt it to be disproportionate to rate the service.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• Vehicles were well equipped and stock was all in date.

• All staff and volunteers were up to date with all training.

• Policies and procedures such as incident reporting, safeguarding adult and children and duty of candour, were comprehensive, in date, and ready to support the service in anticipation of service expansion.

• Regular staff meetings were well documented with agendas and minutes and included shared learning and information.

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

• There were no risk assessments for the volunteer staff who did not yet have a DBS check completed.

• The service did not have a set process to seek and receive feedback from service users.

• There was no process in place to check the dates of compressed gas, leading to some out of date oxygen and Nitrous oxide cannisters being available for use.

• There were infection prevention and control concerns including dusty equipment and surfaces in vehicles and ripped mattresses.

• There was no history of servicing of tail lifts for both emergency vehicles.

• Patient record forms were not always completed appropriately.

• There was a lack of awareness of Gillick competence for the treatment of young people.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Amanda Stanford

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

Updated 18 January 2019

East Anglia Medical Care Ltd (Brockford Garage) provide sporting event medical cover, which is outside our scope of regulation, and urgent and emergency ambulance transport from these events to hospital when required. This part of the service falls under our scope of regulation as a regulated activity.

Since the service registered with us in July 2017 they have undertaken minimal regulated activity, with two urgent and emergency transfers to hospital from events within the reporting period August 2017 to September 2018. Due to this fact, we are unable to rate the service.

The service had policies and procedures established to ensure it provided safe care, including incident reporting and safeguarding. Staff were all up to date with mandatory training. Vehicles were well equipped. Management of medicines was supported with a comprehensive policy and audit programme, and medicines were stored securely. Records were securely stored.

The service had processes in place to check and ensure staff had the correct competencies to carry out their roles. This included policies and training on consent and mental capacity.

The service had an established leadership and supportive culture, including regular and recorded team meetings where aspects of the service were discussed and shared.

However,

There was insufficient oversight of infection control issues including torn mattresses and dusty equipment, the servicing of tail lifts on the emergency vehicles, the expiry dates of compressed gases and patient record forms not always being completed appropriately. The service did not have DBS checks in place for all of its volunteers. The service did not have a working knowledge of Gillick competence for treating young service users.