Under-fire ambulance service improves in ratings

An ambulance service formerly rated as the worst in the country by the NHS has now had several parts of its service rated as good by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

South Western Ambulance Service Trust's (SWAST) emergency and urgent care, emergency operations, resilience, urgent care and patient transport services were inspected by the CQC between April and July.

In December the trust was rated lowest in the country by the NHS Oversight Framework.

Catherine Campbell, from the CQC, said: "We found people were receiving safe and effective care across the board."

The trust's emergency operations centres in Bristol and Exeter, where 999 calls are received, and emergency and urgent care were both rated outstanding for caring.

SWAST typically responded to about 3,200 incidents a day during the summer months.

But one day in June, its busiest day ever, it responded to 4,350 incidents.

SWAST has the biggest geographical area to serve in the UK, including remote parts of Somerset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.

The trust's chief executive Dr John Martin said the "fantastic achievement" was a reflection of hard work by staff.

"In our strategy, we said that we wanted to be recognised as an improving organisation," he added.

"These results are another important sign that we are beginning to see the impact of the significant time, effort and focus that has gone into making that ambition a reality.

"There is still work to do, and the CQC feedback will help us continue to learn and improve. But for now, there is plenty to be proud of."

Each department inspected by the CQC is rated on five qualities: how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are.

Inspectors found the two emergency call centres in Bristol and Exeter were consistently above the national average for how quickly they answered 999 calls.

Secondly, the overall rating for the emergency and urgent care service provided by the trust was upgraded from requires improvement to good.

The emergency and urgent care service was no longer in breach of regulations relating to person-centred care, safe care and treatment, safe equipment and overall management.

However, more than 50% of staff reported feeling unwell due to work stress last year, and some said they got less than 15 minutes to recover from traumatic events, inspectors found.

Tiverton Urgent Treatment Centre in Devon was also evaluated and rated as good overall.

In Tiverton, staff met targets to triage people within 15 minutes, helping to cut waiting times.

The CQC also rated the trust's resilience as good overall.

Inspectors noted a big improvement in response times, with the service consistently exceeding targets.

For example, crews were arriving on the scene 23 minutes after a call, against a target of 45 minutes.

Lastly, patient transport service on the Isles of Scilly was upgraded to good.

The service introduced a plane with a medical bed to make transport to the mainland easier.

However, the service on the isles was found to be in breach of two regulations relating to safe care and treatment, and the management of the service was rated as requiring improvement.

Campbell, CQC's deputy director of hospitals for the South West, added that people noted how staff treated them with "kindness and dignity", which had a big impact in distressing situations.

"We did identify some areas for improvement, particularly in the patient transport service, where leaders weren't monitoring performance and weren't doing enough to identify and address risks," she said.