Emergency Response Systems is operated by Emergency Response Systems Ltd. The service provides a patient transport service.

We inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology. We carried out the announced part of the inspection on 15 – 16 January and 18 – 19 January 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 by this service was patient transport services.

Services we do not rate

We regulate independent ambulance services but we do not currently have a legal duty to rate them. We highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve and take regulatory action as necessary.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• There were excellent governance and reporting systems and arrangements which enabled decision making.
• Feedback from both patients and local hospitals was overwhelming positive about the service provided by Emergency Response Systems.
• The service had received no formal complaints in the previous 12 months.
• Safety incidents were managed well.
• There were good standards of cleanliness and hygiene both at the ambulance base and on ambulances and staff had a good understanding of their role regarding infection control.

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

• There was no person in the organisation trained to Level 4 safeguarding for children and young people.

Professor Edward Baker

Chief Inspector of Hospitals