24.01.20
St John Ambulance services in East Midlands rated ‘Good’ by CQC
First aid charity, St John Ambulance East Midlands, received a mark of ‘Good’ in its first official rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The rating comes after an inspection was announced in August last year at short notice, with the CQC acknowledging improvement had 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.
In the ‘Well-Led’ criterion, the charity was found to be ‘Needing Improvement’ but the announcement comes amid a restructuring 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.
Craig Harman, the National Ambulance & Community Response Director at St John Ambulance, said: “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.”