EMS HQ Also known as EMS Ambulance HQ

Updated 16 December 2019

EMS HQ is operated by Uniblue Limited (also known as EMS Ambulance). The service began operating in 2010 and has had a registered manager in post since 2011. It is an independent ambulance service in Skipton, North Yorkshire, with a second vehicular garage and storage facility in Morecambe.

The service bids for contract work with the North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) each month through an external contract management company. It has a rolling contract with Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) providing services at various locations. The service currently has 11 vehicles based between the Morecambe and Skipton sites.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Treatment of disease, disorder and injury

• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely

Updated 16 December 2019

EMS HQ is operated by Uniblue Ltd. The service provides emergency and urgent care and patient transport service.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the short- notice announced part of the inspection on 13-14 August 2019.

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.

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.

This service was last inspected on 10 April 2019 using our responsive focused inspection methodology which related to information of concern. This service was last inspected on 10 April 2019 using our responsive focused inspection methodology which related to information of concern. Following that inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements. We issued the provider with two warning notice relating to emergency and urgent care, Regulation 17 Good governance and Regulation 19 Fit and Proper Persons, for the purposes of a regulated activity of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

Our last comprehensive inspection was in July 2018, at this inspection we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not

been breached, to help the service improve.

During this inspection, we visited the service headquarters in Skipton and an ambulance garage/storage facility in Morecambe. We inspected five patient transport ambulances and we reviewed 19 staff files, training records, rotas, and company policies and procedures. We spoke with two company directors, one of whom is the registered manager, and four other staff members.

There were no special reviews or investigations of the service ongoing by the CQC at any time during the 12 months before this inspection.

At this inspection, we inspected all five domains (safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led). We rated the service ‘requires improvement’ overall, with safe, effective, responsive and well-led, each rated as ‘requires improvement’. We could not rate caring as we did not observe any patient, relative or carer interaction.

We found the following areas where the service provider needed to improve:

• The service did not have robust arrangements in place to ensure staff employed were fit and proper for their role, with the right skills, training and experience to keep people safe from avoidable harm and to provide the right care and treatment. The service had not fully embedded processes to complete all necessary pre-employment recruitment checks as required.
• We had concerns about health and safety signage in the garage area.
• We had concerns about the arrangements for monitoring the cleaning of vehicles.

However, we also found:

• The ambulance vehicles we inspected were clean and well maintained.
• Monitoring of mandatory training compliance had improved since the last planned inspection.
• The staff we spoke with said the culture within the service was positive and they felt listened to by managers.
• An electronic system had been introduced to record staff HR information.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We issued the provider with regulations notices in relation to Regulation 12: Safe Care and Treatment, Regulation 17 Good Governance and Regulation 19 Fit and Proper Persons, for the purposes of a regulated activity of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Details are at the end of the report

We inspected the service’s headquarters, including the garage, storage areas and five ambulances. The service also has a garage and storage facility at Morecambe which was inspected by another team on the same day. We reviewed 19 staff files, staff training records, rotas, and company policies and procedures. We spoke with two of the company directors and seven other members of staff.

Track record on safety:

• No recorded never events
• No clinical incidents reported
• No serious injuries

The service had received no complaints from July 2018 to August 2019.

This was our first rating of this service. We rated it as Requires improvement overall.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it must take some actions to comply with the regulations and that it should make other improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. We also issued the provider with three requirement notice(s). Details are at the end of the report.

Ann Ford

Interim Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (North), on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Updated 16 December 2019

Patient transport services formed the main proportion of activity.

We looked at the safe, effective, caring and well-led domains and we found areas where the provider needed to improve in.

The service was rated however we could not rate caring as we did not observe any patient, relative or carer interaction