Archived: Mobile Medical Cover

Updated 27 July 2022

The service was registered with CQC in 2016 and has had the same registered manager in post since registration. It is registered to provide the following regulated activities:

• Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

• Treatment of disease, disorder or injury.

The main service provided was patient transport. Where our findings for patient transport services – for example, management arrangements – also apply to other services, we do not repeat the information but cross-refer to patient transport services.

Mobile Medical Cover Ltd is an independent ambulance provider based in Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire. It provides patient transport services to the local NHS trust, primarily in the form of patient discharges. The provider is also registered for emergency and urgent care and covers a range of events, including festivals and motor racing and is contracted to provide medical cover at a specific site which is out of our scope of regulation.

The previous inspection of Mobile Medical Cover took place on 9 and 14 February 2022. Following this inspection Mobile Medical Cover was served with an Urgent Section 31 suspension of the regulated activities. Following an application made by Mobile Medical Cover Ltd the suspension was lifted and the provider was able to carry out regulated activity from 15 April 2022. Patient transport services running sheets we reviewed for the period following the resumption of services in April 2022 until our inspection showed the service undertook about 50 patient transport journeys. This inspection was a comprehensive follow up inspection carried out on 16 May 2022, to assess if the provider was now compliant.

Updated 27 July 2022

We rated this location as inadequate because:

• The service failed to ensure robust infection prevention control measures were in place which follow current government guidance and legislation.
• The service failed to ensure risk assessments for patients using the service including plans for managing risks were completed, recorded and audited to provide evidence doing all that is reasonably practicable to mitigate risk.
• The service continued to demonstrate poor management of medicines and medical gases including storage, dispensing, administration, recording and disposal in line with best practice guidance.
• The service failed to share outcomes of incident investigations with the patient, their families and carers and their own staff.
• The service continued to be unable to demonstrate the implementation of an effective system and process to ensure the premises and equipment including each vehicle and the equipment carried on it is clean, safe, well maintained and fit for purpose.
• The service managers continued to be unable to demonstrate a full understanding of their roles and responsibilities and the duties delegated to them by the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
• The service continued to be unable to demonstrate effective governance systems and oversight supported by clearly defined audit of systems and processes.
• The service failed to ensure effective systems were in place to assess and monitor the quality of care for patients.
• The service continued to be unable to demonstrate staff were recruited in accordance with Schedule 3 requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulations) 2014.

Following the inspection CQC took enforcement action using our urgent powers whereby we suspended the provider’s registration until 19 August 2022 under section 31 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 as people may or will be exposed to the risk of harm. This was to immediately protect patients from the risk of harm and to give the provider the opportunity to put in place urgent actions to address our concerns.

We also issued a notice of proposal to cancel the registrations of the provider and registered manager on 30 May 2022. The provider submitted representations to appeal the notices on 02 June 2022. The representations were not upheld regarding the cancellation of the provider and a notice of decision to cancel the registration of the provider was issued on 06 July 2022

The provider did not appeal the notice of decision to cancel the provider registration. Therefore, the notice of decision to cancel the registration of the provider took effect on 12 August 2022.

Updated 27 July 2022

Our rating of safe stayed the same. We rated it as inadequate.

See the summary above for details.

Updated 27 July 2022

Emergency and urgent care is a small proportion of the ambulance provider’s activity. The main service was patient transport. Where arrangements were the same, we have reported findings in the patient transport services section.

At the time of inspection, the provider had not supported any events since the resumption of operations in April 2022, although some events were planned. Consequently, no transfers from event sites had taken place from April 2022 to the time of inspection.