Thames Valley Air Ambulance has been rated as Outstanding following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission between 8 and 9 January 2020.
Thames Valley Air Ambulance is an independent ambulance service and is based at RAF Benson, Wallingford, Oxfordshire. The service primarily serves the communities of the Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire.
Inspectors rated the service as Outstanding for being safe, caring and well-led and Good for being effective and responsive to people’s needs.
The full report of the inspectors’ findings will be available on CQC’s website here: www.cqc.org.uk/location/1-5795248076
Catherine Campbell, Head of Hospital Inspection for the South East said:
"Thames Valley Air Ambulance are providing an exceptional service. The service is using innovative ways to ensure that people get the attention they need, in the right place and at the right time.
There was a strong culture of openness, honesty and learning and there was evidence of sharing practice with others, and an ethos for embracing constant opportunity for learning and improving.
“Credit must go to the hard work and commitment of the staff and leadership team. We will continue to monitor the trust’s performance and will return to hopefully report on further improvements in due course.”
The service and staff took a proactive approach to safeguarding. Every job attended by the service was reviewed by the safeguarding lead. The systems in place would prompt the user to consider any safeguarding concerns and would not let them proceed until they had acknowledged the prompt.
Records were used to promote learning and discussion. The electronic system automatically flagged jobs that could be used or reviewed as examples. The system flagged them because they had key areas that would benefit reviewing or learning.
The service carried both packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma on all its vehicles. This enabled clinicians to give transfusions in an emergency setting.
There are no nationally specified key performance indicators for air ambulance services. The service had developed its own scorecard and monitored outcomes such as surgical procedures as well as missions by type. This enabled them to tailor their service to the times most required and the equipment needed.
The service had employed a patient liaison manager. This was to provide aftercare services for patients once they had been transferred to hospital or after they had been discharged. Patients reported this was an amazing service that added real value to their recovery process. The service was also using feedback from patients, via the patient liaison manager, to improve their practice.
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