CQC lifts registration condition on Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust

3 September 2010

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) today, Friday, said Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust has made sufficient improvement to emergency response times and it would now lift the condition it had imposed on the trust’s licence.

The CQC stressed that the trust must continue to maintain the improvement in respect of responding to category A calls (immediately life threatening) within eight minutes.

The CQC imposed the conditions on 1 April 2010, when it introduced a tough new registration system for NHS trusts. It was one of 22 trusts judged not to be meeting essential standards of quality and safety and registered on the condition that it made improvements.

At the time of registration, CQC was concerned that the trust had consistently failed to meet national targets on ambulance response times. In particular, it was failing to meet the target requiring ambulances to respond to 75% of Category A calls (life threatening situations) within eight minutes. It required the trust to take urgent action to ensure that by 31 October 2010 it was responding to emergencies defined as “immediately life threatening” promptly in line with national requirements in order that people who use the services receive safe and appropriate care, treatment and support.

To check whether the necessary improvements had been made, the CQC made two visits in June and July 2010. The trust produced a detailed operational plan to improve response times, which had been endorsed by its commissioners (the primary care trusts that pay for its services) and the strategic health authority.

The CQC found that:

• Response times have improved markedly. The trust provided data demonstrating that between April and August 2010 it responded to 76.1% of category A calls within eight minutes. For the month of August, the figure was 78.82% at the time of the review.
• A local primary care trust described the operational plan as “for the first time suitably ambitious” and said it fostered confidence among NHS organisations that pay for its services, due to its detail, ambition and scrutiny.
• A new rota system will ensure that staffing levels are matched to the expected demand for services at any time.
• The trust is working with local hospitals to reduce the amount of time it takes to hand over patients from ambulance staff to A&E staff.
• The trust is using rapid response vehicles as an initial response to incidents, which are then backed up by double manned ambulances as appropriate. This is a system used in many other parts of the country.

Jo Dent, Regional Director, Care Quality Commission in Yorkshire and Humberside says, “When we imposed the condition in April we did so against a backdrop of historical failure. It is a credit to the trust that in the first four months of 2010-11, response times have been over and above the 75% target.

“I know that an enormous amount of work has gone into meeting the target and the fact that collaborative working with other health bodies in the area has borne such impressive results will be a source of great satisfaction and pride for the ambulance service in Yorkshire.

“While we have removed the condition from the trust’s licence, we will be watching closely and expect to see these improvements maintained. The trust faces a number of challenges in delivering its ambitious plan for improvement. We want to see that ambition translate into lasting benefits for patients.”

Ends

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Notes to editors