EMS HQ is operated by Uniblue Limited. 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 28 March 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 only service provided by this provider 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:

• The service had a close management team whose goal was to provide the best patient care possible and look after their staff.

• The service had high completion rates of mandatory training, new staff members underwent a comprehensive induction programme.Staff who had been in post for over one year all had an appraisal.

• There were robust procedures to ensure all those tasked to drive ambulances were competent, this included regular electronic driving license checks and driving assessments.

• Ambulances were deep cleaned regularly by an external company and swabbed to ensure they were infection free.

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

• The ambulance station was cluttered with no clear system to ensure equipment which was not in use was cleaned and separated.There was no clearly defined sluice area with running water.

• The storage of oxygen, chemicals and flammable liquids was not in line with best practice guidance.

• The nominated safeguarding lead was not trained appropriately for safeguarding vulnerable adults.

• The service needed to improve their communication with their contracting organisations to ensure they were aware of their role in major incident plans and the outcomes of assurance visits.

Following this inspection, we told the provider that it should make improvements, even though a regulation had not been breached, to help the service improve. Details are at the end of the report.

Ellen Armistead

Deputy Chief Inspector of Hospitals (area of responsibility), on behalf of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

Due to the nature of the service, we were unable to speak with people who used the ambulance service. We did however speak to members of staff and the provider.

We saw evidence that patient report forms contained a good level of information that ensured people’s needs were being met.

We observed that people were cared for in a clean, hygienic environment. There were effective systems in place to reduce the risk and spread of infection.

People were treated by staff who were supported to deliver care safely and to an appropriate standard. Staff had a programme of on-going training, supervision and appraisal.

There were quality monitoring programmes in place, which included people giving feedback about their care and support. This provided a good overview of the quality of the services provided.