St John Ambulance Service in East Midlands Rated ‘Good’ by CQC: First Official Rating for the First Aid Charity

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Today St John Ambulance East Midlands received its first rating from the Quality Care Commission and was awarded ‘good’.

The rating comes after an inspection was announced at short notice in August last year and the CQC acknowledged improvements that have been made in the charitable service since the previous inspection in 2017.

Both the Patient Transport Service and Emergency & Urgent Care Service were reviewed, and both were found to provide safe, caring, effective and responsive care to patients.

As part of this review, the rating takes into account the regional office in Chesterfield, satellite stations at Newark and Northampton and also reviews one event in the region.

Eight ambulances were inspected across the three regions, along with twelve sets of patient records.

To finish off the in-depth review, twenty-one members of staff were spoken to, including registered paramedics, emergency care technicians, the operations coordinator, the safeguarding lead, the fleet manager, the regional accountable officer for controlled drugs, and both registered managers for the East Midlands.

The ‘well-led’ criterion was found to be ‘needing improvement’, but the announcement comes in the middle of a re-structuring period for St John Ambulance and the CQC has acknowledged further improvements in the five-month period since the inspection took place.

Feedback from the CQC reported St John Ambulance East Midlands to be safe, effective, responsive, well-lead and caring towards patients: “Staff spoke to patients with compassion and kindness, showing they respected their privacy and dignity, and took account of their individual needs.”

St John is now implementing its 2020 business strategy for ambulance provision and looks forward to welcoming the CQC back to see further improvements; not only in the East Midlands, but across the country.

St John Ambulance is exceptionally proud of the work it does, providing urgent care and support to communities across the country.

This rating proves that this work more than meets the expectations of the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

Craig Harman, the National Ambulance & Community Response Director at St John Ambulance comments: “I am pleased that the CQC found our leaders to be visible and approachable and that our people felt supported, respected and valued.’

“I was also pleased that the inspectors witnessed good care, witnessing our people speaking to patients with compassion and kindness. Since the inspection in August we have restructured, moving to a national operational structure.’

“We will use the feedback provided by the inspection team to underpin our new national processes as we build on the hard work already carried out by our people and continuously improve the service we provide in our communities.‘

“Driving standards across the independent ambulance sector and within the event industry is a key strategic objective for St John and this CQC report is an excellent example of the work we are already doing to help us get there”.

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