Ambulance trust comes under fire

EMERGENCY and urgent care services provided by North-West Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust have been rated as "requires improvement".

An overall staff vacancy rate of 5.7 per cent was revealed in the findings published yesterday increasing to 15.7 per cent for paramedic roles.

In Greater Manchester paramedics are being employed from oversees to "manage the deficit" in staff shortages, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found.

Safety and quality of leadership were said to 'require improvement' while care, effectiveness and responsiveness were rated as "good".

The NWAS trust received the news after the CQC undertook a week-long assessment in May.

Chief executive of the trust Derek Cartwright said the "majority" of the points highlighted have been addressed since the time of the inspections in May and June, 2016.

Robust

He referred to the "unprecedented demand" for services over the last 12 months but said the trust were "determined" to review policies and guidelines and put a "robust action plan" in place.

NWAS is the second largest of 10 ambulance trusts in England and it oversees 109 ambulance stations across the region.

England's chief inspector of hospitals Mike Richards said: "Inspectors found a number of improvements were needed at the trust.

"The overall vacancy rate for the trust was 5.7 per cent at the time of the inspection.

"The trust was aware that the recruitment of additional staff was a managerial challenge and was using a number of initiatives to manage this deficit. It is vital that a busy service like NWAS has sufficient numbers of staff with the requisite knowledge and skills to meet patients' needs."

In response the trust launched progression programmes for emergency medical technician (EMT) staff.

They have also recruited 35 new European paramedics in Greater Manchester with plans to recruit a further 36.

Battle

NWAS branch secretary of public services union UNISON Jeff Gorman said: "There are too few staff to deal with the growing number of 999 calls coming in. But that's a problem across the whole of the country, not just the North-West.

"Managers at the service are trying their best to fill staffing gaps but without a proper injection of NHS funding from the government and a review of how paramedics are trained, this will be an uphill battle. There simply aren't enough new recruits coming through the system."

CQC inspectors also raised concerns over staff training, the reporting of safeguarding issues and incidents, as well as communication around the complaints service.

They requested that the trust improve the process for pre-alerting hospital A&E departments so that departments are fully aware of patients' conditions.

However Manchester's Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) team was found to be 'outstanding', staff said that the leadership from heads of service was "strong and visible" and praise was given to the trust's clinical leadership model.

Mr Cartwright of the NWAS said: "We accept the comments in the report relating to improvements required for procedures, guidelines and training, however the inspection took place almost ten months ago and the majority of the points highlighted have already been addressed.

Challenging

"For the remainder, we are working to a robust action plan which is being monitored by the executive team and our commissioners."

He added: "The last 12 months have been extremely challenging for the organisation with unprecedented demand for our services and it is unfortunate that by not reviewing policies and guidelines as often as we should, we are in the position we are now.

"We are determined to right this as soon as possible and I am confident that the CQC will see huge improvements when they next visit."