The Great North Air Ambulance Service rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission
The Great North Air Ambulance Service is a charity which provides emergency, advanced critical care for patients across the North East of England, North Yorkshire and Cumbria. A team of doctors and paramedics deliver medical care via helicopter air ambulance or a rapid response vehicle.
This is the first time the service has been rated and inspectors found a service where people benefitted from outstanding care.
Following the inspection, the service was rated outstanding overall and for being safe and well-led. It was rated good for being effective, caring and responsive.
Sarah Dronsfield, CQC head of hospital inspection said:
“When we inspected The Great North Air Ambulance, we were extremely impressed by the level of care and support people received when using this service.
“The charity is one of the first emergency services in the UK to use software that allows staff to access a mobile phone at the scene of an incident. The software allows the sharing of location and videos to enable staff to respond in real time and make informed decisions before deploying aircraft.
“We were also impressed by the service’s creation of a bag system that enabled staff to easily transport vital equipment including monitoring systems and ventilators to remote areas in an emergency.
“The charity made sure that staff were well trained, sometimes in more than one role. For example, some staff were trained paramedics who were also competent clinical managers meaning the service had access to all levels of staff at short notice. The service delivered specialist training programmes including enhanced pre-hospital resuscitation and transfer training.
“There was a genuine culture of wanting to provide the best care for patients and a desire to improve services. Staff at all levels were passionate about the service provided and were proud to work for the charity. Leaders inspired shared purpose to deliver and motivate staff to succeed.
“The whole team deserve to be congratulated for all their hard work and commitment.”
CQC inspectors found:
- The service had a major incident response plan which all staff could access. There were laminated action cards available to provide staff with advice about roles and responsibilities in the event of a major incident.
- The service had standard operating procedures for the treatment of specific illness and injuries, this ensured all staff had a clear process to follow.
- Leaders were visible and approachable. All staff we spoke to spoke of how they could always go to their managers or the senior management team to discuss concerns or talk about improvement projects.
- Managers investigated incidents and shared lessons learned with the whole team, the wider service and partner organisations.
- All staff we spoke with were extremely passionate about being open and honest, so they could identify learning and improve the quality of care they gave.
- Leaders and staff actively and openly engaged with patients, staff, equality groups, the public and local organisations to plan and manage services.
