Archived: Phoenix Medical HQ

Updated 27 April 2021

Phoenix Medical Services ltd is an independent ambulance service based in Hastings. Darren Cable is the registered manager and company director.

The service is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury

This service has not been previously inspected.

The main service provided by this ambulance service is events work but the provider had also undertaken emergency and urgent care work and patient transport work too. However, at the time of inspection, the provider had no regular patient transport contracts or emergency and urgent care contracts.

Updated 27 April 2021

Phoenix Medical Services ltd is operated by Mr Darren Cable. We inspected this service using our focused inspection methodology after receiving information giving us concerns about the safety and quality of the services. We carried out the announced part of the inspection, giving 48 hours’ notice on 23 February 2021. To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we normally ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? During this focused inspection we focused on part of the domain of safe and the whole domain of well led.

We rated it as requires improvement because:

• The service provided mandatory training in key skills to all staff but did not always document that everyone completed it.

• The service did not always control infection risks well. Staff did not always use equipment and control measures to protect patients, themselves and others from infection.

• Staff did not always complete and update risk assessments for each patient and removed or minimised risks.

• The provider did not track or audit records of patients’ care and treatment. Information was not used in a way to improve the quality of care delivered.

• Leaders did not always operate effective governance processes, throughout the service and with partner organisations. Data was not collected, analysed or used to improve the quality of the service.

However:

• The provider had taken steps to make changes to the service after working with an NHS trust in 2020. The registered manager was keen to continue to improve and develop the service provided.

Updated 27 April 2021

Patient transport service is a small proportion of ambulance activity. The main service was urgency and emergency care. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the urgent and emergency care section.

We rated this service as requires improvement.

Updated 27 April 2021

Please refer to the overall summary