24th January 2020: Today St John Ambulance East Midlands received its first rating from the Care Quality Commission and was awarded ‘good’.
The rating comes after an inspection was announced at short notice in August last year and the CQC acknowledged improvements that have been made in the charitable service since the previous inspection in 2017. Both the Patient Transport Service and Emergency & Urgent Care Service were reviewed, and both were found to provide safe, caring, effective and responsive care to patients.
The ‘well-led’ criterion was found to be ‘needing improvement’, but the announcement comes in the middle of a re-structuring period for St John Ambulance and the CQC has acknowledged further improvements in the five-month period since the inspection took place.
St John is now implementing its 2020 business strategy for ambulance provision and looks forward to welcoming the CQC back to see further improvements; not only in the East Midlands, but across the country.
St John Ambulance is exceptionally proud of the work it does, providing urgent care and support to communities across the country. This rating proves that this work more than meets the expectations of the independent regulator of health and social care in England.
Craig Harman, the National Ambulance & Community Response Director at St John Ambulance comments: “I am pleased that the CQC found our leaders to be visible and approachable and that our people felt supported, respected and valued. I was also pleased that the inspectors witnessed good care, witnessing our people speaking to patients with compassion and kindness. Since the inspection in August we have restructured, moving to a national operational structure. We will use the feedback provided by the inspection team to underpin our new national processes as we build on the hard work already carried out by our people and continuously improve the service we provide in our communities.
Driving standards across the independent ambulance sector and within the event industry is a key strategic objective for St John and this CQC report is an excellent example of the work we are already doing to help us get there”.
