Southern Country Ambulance Service is an independent ambulance service based in Hampshire. The service provides patient transport services operating from a single location in Hampshire. The provider has a fleet of four vehicles equipped to give them the capacity to carry out routine outpatients work, hospital discharges, admissions and urgent transfers.

We carried out a scheduled comprehensive announced inspection on 18 November 2016.

We do not currently have a legal duty to rate independent ambulance services but we highlight good practice and issues that service providers need to improve.

We found the following areas of good practice:

• Vehicles and equipment were monitored, serviced and maintained to ensure safety.

• Staff worked flexibly to meet the demands of the service.

• Staff had a good understanding, and followed safety processes such as safeguarding procedures, infection prevention and control practices and duty of candour legislation.

• Staff took responsibility to ensure their professional skills were up to date to ensure they provided the service in a safe and effective manner.

• The provider was aware of national guidance relating to the provision of patient transport services. This was reflected in the service’s policies and procedures.

• Staff demonstrated a professional and caring approach, providing individualised care and support to patients and their families.

• The leadership of the service promoted teamwork and commitment to providing a patient centred service.

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

• Some aspects of the running of the service were not formalised or recorded. There was no formalised governance process to provide documentary evidence that quality of the service was measured or that risks to the service were monitored and appropriate mitigating action taken. There were no records to evidence induction, supervision and appraisal of staff was carried out.

• Planning for the delivery of the services was challenged by the lack of assurance that work would be delegated to them on a regular basis by the local NHS ambulance trust.

• There was no assurance that all incidents were reported, investigated and that learning took place in response to incidents.

• The provider did not monitor their response times to requests for patient transport services or whether they were meeting the KPIs for the local NHS ambulance trust.

• The management of complaints process did not include the management of complaints received by the service that related to the planning and delegation of work from other providers.

• Staff did not receive training about supporting patients living with dementia or a learning disability.

• There was no formal process to access interpreting services for patients whose first language was not English.

Information on our key findings and action we have asked the provider to take is listed at the end of the report.

Professor Sir Mike Richards

Chief Inspector of Hospitals