The results of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection into the East of England Ambulance Service Trust have been published. Inspectors carried out a comprehensive inspection of the Trust’s emergency and urgent care service and emergency operations center in April before returning to inspect the ‘well-led’ element of the Trust in May.
The CQC found the Trust had made a ‘marked improvement’ on significant and long-standing cultural issues that had led to it being placed in special measures just under two years ago, and, as a result, the Trust moves from an inadequate rating for ‘well-led’ to requires improvement.
Findings
The inspection found;
- The staff works effectively as a team to provide safe, kind, and compassionate care to patients.
- The Trust was making it easier for people to give feedback and raise care concerns received.
- Staff was treating concerns and complaints seriously, and learning from them.
- A stronger leadership team with a stable Executive team and Board in place will drive improvements in the Trust in the years ahead.
safe and supportive workplace
This is beginning to have a positive impact making significant progress to tackle bullying and harassment"
Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Tom Abell said, “I am pleased the CQC has recognized that hard work of our people under significant pressure and that we have made marked improvements on what we have needed to address from previous inspections, which highlighted significant issues with our culture that left staff feeling unable to raise concerns."
“We have focussed on providing our people with a safe and supportive workplace and there are early indicators this is beginning to have a positive impact making significant progress to tackle bullying and harassment."
Addressing the challenges
“However, we recognize that this is only the first step in our work to improve our culture and our service and we have a 3-5 year plan in place to fully address all of the challenges we face."
"The CQC rightly identified several areas for improvement that we are continuing to address, including improving staff morale and access to training, the impact of the Trust being on heightened surge levels for extended periods, and the challenges of staffing our ambulance operations centers. We have taken this feedback very seriously and will continue to work hard to address these issues.”
Improving culture
We have strengthened our leadership team and have a stable Board in place, which will progress the change"
EEAST Chair, Nicola Scrivings said, “We have made some positive early steps to improve the culture of the Trust, but we recognize there is much more still to be done."
"We have strengthened our leadership team and have a stable Board in place, which will progress the improvement and change needed across the Trust in the future.”
Improvement and change
The Trust has brought 45 measures to better support staff, including an increase in mental health provision, ‘welfare wagons’ to support staff with food and refreshments at hospitals, and access to physiotherapy.
The Trust has seen a reduction in a number of staff reporting experiencing bullying and harassment and a 900% increase in people feeling able to speak up.