A deeply concerning inspection report conducted by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently found North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust (NEAS), which provides emergency care for 2.7 million people, frequently responds to emergencies without access to life-saving drugs.
The CQC report has evidenced a decline in standards since a previous inspection in 2018:
- In 2018, NEAS’s urgent care was rated as “good”, but is now rated as ‘inadequate’.
- NEAS Trust, the NHS 111 service, and its emergency operations centre were rated as ‘good’ in 2018 but are now rated as ‘requires improvement’.
- NEAS was previously rated as ‘well-led’ but this rating has been downgraded to ‘inadequate’.
During the recent inspection, inspectors found that:
- Ambulance crews frequently operated without enough “standard” medicines such as morphine and seizure medication.
- There were discrepancies in the number of medicines and mislabelled bags of medicine found in ambulances.
- Numerous incidents were reported of missing medicines that were unaccounted for.
- Staff didn’t always have access to critical medicines needed to treat patients and some crews didn’t have time to complete vehicle medicine checks, resulting in treatment delays.
In addition, in relation to the emergency operations centre, inspectors concluded there was an inadequate number of call handlers to manage the volume of 111 non-emergency calls. This is evidenced by the increasing average time it takes to get through to a call handler. From July 2021 to June 2022, the average time was fifty times longer. The average time to get through to 111 had decreased to 115 seconds in August, but this is still more than five times longer than the national target.
More concerningly, the inspection found 38% of calls were abandoned, which is significantly above the national target of 3%.
NEAS has now been issued with a warning notice following the CQC inspection and has been told it must, under law, take action to improve across 17 areas.
Since the damning report of the organisation’s failings was published, two directors from NEAS have resigned.
NEAS chief executive, Helen Ray, was reported as saying that they have “taken swift action” since the first inspection into the service but “recognise there is more to do”.
Comment
The CQC inspection is damning for the already under pressure NEAS.
In a survey run of almost 500 members of staff held as part of the inspection, staff confirmed they felt under pressure and did not feel supported or valued. Some staff felt uneasy about raising concerns for fear of blame. One member of staff quoted in the report raised concerns of a “significant blame culture”.
It is with the utmost importance that NEAS improve their standards as they will now be “closely monitored” with the CQC saying it would “expect to see sustainable improvements the next time we inspect”.
How can we help
For advice on the subjects discussed in this article, please get in touch with a member of our Medical Negligence team in Derby, Leicester, or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or via our online enquiry form.
Contact us