NW Ambulance Service Foundation Trust rated inadequate

The North West Ambulance Service Foundation Trust has been rated as ‘requires improvement' by inspectors at the the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

The CQC maintained that the trust achieved a ‘good' ranking for being effective, caring and responsive but needed to make improvements in being safe and well-led.

During the visit, inspectors examined three of the trust’s core services, including the emergency operations centre, urgent and emergency care and patient transport services - and looked at the trust’s NHS 111 service provision.

Commenting on the rating, Professor Sir Mike Richards, The Chief Inspector of Hospitals said: “The overall vacancy rate for the trust was 16 per cent at the time of the inspection. This was a particular issue in Cumbria, 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 such as the employment of paramedics from other countries.

“The trust had already employed 35 new European paramedics in Greater Manchester at the time of our inspection. There were plans to recruit a further 36 with 24 of these being appointed to North Cumbria."

"There were concerns surrounding staff training and whether the service had enough staff to meet the needs of the service and patients. There were also concerns surrounding how safeguarding issues and incidents were reported, and the communication around complaints to the service.

“It is encouraging that the urgent and emergency care service has had a clinical leadership model in place since 2012, with more focus on clinical quality than was previously the case. The leadership model includes having a consultant paramedic in each area and advanced paramedics in each sector. Staff reported that the new clinical leadership structure had been well received.

“The trust is working against a backdrop of increased pressure on all of its services and, while I am anxious to see the trust continue to monitor and improve staffing levels and share lessons learned from incidents and complaints, I’m confident that the areas of good practice can be maintained and further improvements made."