Agenda item

Report of the Chief Executive, South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust providing the Panel with an overview of the Trust's Care Quality Commission inspection findings and the improvement programme to address the issues raised.

The Panel considered the report of the Chief Executive, South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust which provided the Panel with an overview of the Trust’s Care Quality Commission inspection findings and the improvement programme to address the issues raised.

Will Hancock, Chief executive, South Central Ambulance NHS Foundation Trust (Virtual); Tom Stevenson, Improvement Programme Communications Lead, South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (Virtual) Michela Morris, Head of Operations for Southampton and South West, South Central Ambulance Services; and James House, Managing Director, Southampton Place, Integrated Care Board; were in attendance and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the meeting.

The Panel discussed a number of points including:

·  The poor rating from the Care Quality Commission was a surprise as the service had been rated good in previous inspections.

·  Assurance was provided that in recognition of the improvements required robust action plans had been implemented.

·  The Panel expressed their thanks for the hard work and commitment of the frontline staff who work hard in often difficult circumstances to deliver compassionate care to the people with whom they had contact.

·  The service was partnered with a wide range of organisations across the south and implementing change can be challenging as agreement needed to be reached with many different services.

·  The staff training and appraisal programme had been reviewed and found that when pressures escalated, due to a high level of calls requiring emergency response or life support, the focus was on patient care and staff training and development activity diminished.

·  Managers had been visiting staff at their workstations to examine what changes could be made by the service in the short term and what changes were required that were the responsibility of the hospitals and other health services.

·  The report did not include feedback from the trade unions regarding the implementation of plans to improve support for staff.

·  The service had also delivered the Covid booking and passport service for NHS England and Public Health England which had stretched the service over the last couple of years.

·  There had been some challenges with the supply of resources such as vehicles that had been ordered 18 months ago and had still not been delivered.

·  The shortage of staff to be recruited into services required health services in the area to collaborate on workforce planning in the south.

·  A new leadership training programme had been introduced to change the management culture in the organisation and the speak-up-guardian approach, that had been adopted across the whole NHS, had been promoted within the service.

·  Improvement was required in the governance of safeguarding referrals that had been made by service staff and additional staff and training had been implemented to clear the backlog.

·  Response times was an area that required improvement for the service across the whole area, however, in Southampton response times were good as the University Hospital Southampton were very good at taking on patients as soon as the ambulances arrived.

·  The Integrated Care Board had a good relationship with the service and there was a shared understanding of the service strengths and required improvements.

RESOLVED that the Panel would be kept updated on inspection activity and findings with a view to SCAS returning to update HOSP on progress at a future meeting of the Panel.