South Central Ambulance Service makes improvements after 'Inadequate' rating

‘Important improvements’ have been made within South Central Ambulance Service’s (SCAS) emergency and urgent care service and its emergency operations centre.

The South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust provides emergency ambulance services to around six million people across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire.

A damning inspection of the service by the Care Quality Commission in April 2022 saw its emergency and urgent care service rated inadequate.

The trust’s emergency operations centre, which receives and triages 999 calls from the public, also received a requires improvement rating.

Inspectors from the independent health and social care regulator carried out a follow-up inspection of the service in May this year.

A report from the Care Quality Commission has been published which reveals the trust’s emergency and urgent care service has been upgraded to requires improvement while its emergency operations centre is now rated good.

Key findings from the report include an improvement in response times to patients in the community.

In December 2024, the trust introduced a ‘Release to Respond’ initiative which aimed to reduce the time ambulance crews wait at hospitals to complete patient handovers.

SCAS’s new policy is that if the hospital is unable to complete a full clinical handover within 45 minutes, ambulance crews will leave patients in a designated area of the emergency department and ensure all patient information is handed over to hospital staff.

“This initiative made a significant difference to response times,” the CQC said.

“The time taken to reach someone who called 999 with an emergency dropped from 38 minutes in October 2024 to 22 minutes by March this year.”

Inspectors found the emergency and urgent care service, which covers the assessment, treatment and care of patients at the scene by ambulance crews, had been operating under ‘sustained pressure’ over the past two years.

“Staff described increased workloads, stress and fatigue during this period which impacted their ability to deliver safe care and treatment,” the report added.

During the inspection of the service in April 2022, staff described a ‘dismissive attitude’ when raising whistleblowing concerns to leaders at the trust. The CQC said addressing this culture is one of the trust’s key focuses but some staff still feel unable to raise concerns.

Inspectors also found the service does not always manage medicines safely and ambulances were sometimes not stocked with morphine to treat people in pain.

This issue arose due to a change in how morphine was stored when ambulances were off the road. But ambulance staff told inspectors they felt this had compromised the quality of care they could give to patients.

The report recognised ambulance crews treated patients with compassion and kindness. Steps had also been taken to improve infection prevention control.

An inspection of the trust’s two emergency operations centres, based at Bicester, Oxfordshire, and Otterbourne, Hampshire, found staff were well trained and responded professionally to help people receive the care they needed.

Staff understood the emotional impact delays had on people’s wellbeing and the service is performing well at answering 999 calls, the report added.

Amanda Williams, CQC deputy director of hospitals, secondary and specialist care in the South East, said: “When we inspected South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust, we were pleased to find the service had made important improvements since our last inspection, and that the requirements of the warning notice we previously issued had now been met.

“The trust should look to build on these improvements we’ve seen and we’ll continue to monitor the trust to ensure this happens.”