Issue - meetings

Richard Lyne, General Manager of the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) submits a report explaining progress made since the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) inspection in February 2017 and outlining the key areas for improvement in the Trust Quality Improvement Plan. 

The report and supporting papers are attached as follows:

Report:  Quality Improvement Plan Update (Appendix E1)

Supporting information:

·         EMAS – Response time and handover:  considered at the meeting of the Leicester City Council Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission  4 October 2017 (Appendix E2)

·         EMAS – Ambulance Response Programme – Pilot: considered at the meeting of the Leicester City Council Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny commission 4 October 2017 (Appendix E3)

·         EMAS – Presentation: considered at the East Midlands Health Scrutiny Network 27 June 2017  (Appendix E4)

·         The CQC Inspection report of EMAS can be found on the following link:

• http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAG3547.pdf

Richard Lyne, General Manager of the East Midlands Ambulance Service (EMAS) submitted a report that provided an update on the Quality Improvement Plan that arose following their CQC inspection.

The Chair introduced the item and explained that the Leicester City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Commission had considered EMAS and the hand-over time at the Leicester Royal Infirmary at their meeting on 4 October 2017. The Committee had been given assurances that the new Emergency Department (ED) would increase capacity and the ability to deal with pressure surges from EMAS.   However there had been winter pressures since and reports of ambulances stacking up and delays in transferring patients into the ED; all of which impacted on the rest of the county. The Chair had also heard that EMAS had requested an additional £10m funding over the next two years and then £20m which represented a 12% increase in their annual budget. This was requested in order to meet the national target which included a seven minute response time (this was currently at 9%).

Mr Lyne presented the report and explained that since the last meeting they were now in a position to address some of the ‘could do’ actions arising from the inspection as the key actions had been addressed.   Points made included the following:

1)  Leicester was now the second county in the East Midlands region to adopt the pre-hospital treatment antibiotic therapy. The therapy had been rolled out earlier that month and was a very important development in managing life threatening sepsis.

2)   A leadership development programme had been put in place across all of EMAS’ leaders regardless of their level of management.

3)  Duty of Candour was now fully embedded which ensured that an acknowledgement and appropriate response was given when the service fell below the standard that was expected.

4)  A training needs analysis was now in place for all of the paramedics. Paramedics had been upgraded from a Band 5 to a Band 6 and a requirement of that upgrade was for all paramedics to have a training needs analysis.

5)  There had been a capacity and demand review which had identified a gap between demand and in what EMAS could provide, hence the request for investment to fund more front line clinicians and ambulances. In respect of this; negotiations with the CCG were currently taking place.

6)  There had been a very challenging winter with activity 6% higher than anticipated between December 2017 and March 2018. There had also been an increase in acuity with approximately 12 % of the calls involving life threatening conditions. Given the increase in calls, the delays at the Leicester Royal Infirmary were significantly lower than the previous year. The average handover time during that winter period was approximately 26-27 minutes compared to 31 minutes the year before.

A Member commented that she was pleased to hear about the improvements and questioned what determined the response target; whether it was the condition or the individual concerned. The meeting heard  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56