Agenda item

The Committee received a report of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Groups which provided an update on the mobilisation of the new Non-Emergency Transport contract with Thames Ambulance Services Limited (TASL) and highlighted key issues that arose during the first month of mobilisation and the actions being taken to resolve them. A copy of the report, marked ‘Agenda Item 9’, is filed with these minutes.

Arising from discussions the following points were noted:

(i)        Prior to the contract being signed TASL had submitted a plan of how it would conduct its operations. The plan had been scrutinised by the CCG and assessed as adequate. Extensive due diligence had taken place. It had been considered that TASL was the best option out of all the bidders for the contract.

(ii)       It was acknowledged by the CCG that the performance of the Non-Emergency Patient Transfer Service during the first month of mobilisation had been unacceptable however reassurance was given that many of the issues which arose had now been resolved, for example the transfer of patient data to the new service provider had now taken place. It was highlighted that many of the issues related to the previous transport provider and handover to the new provider. A Member suggested that in future the contracts with Transport providers should include provision regarding the handover process to any future provider.

(iii)      A critical factor which led to the performance problems had been the cumulative effect of TASL carrying out Patient Transfer Services in more than one county at the same time. Since mobilisation, work had been carried out in the other counties which TASL operated in to help improve overall performance.

(iv)      When mobilisation began TASL had a single control room which covered Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Yorkshire. However, to improve performance they had now set up several control rooms throughout the region including a special control room for renal oncology and in Leicestershire there was a specific control room for outpatient transport. Handling of the discharge of patients had been devolved to individual hospital sites which gave more local control.

(v)       TASL had found it difficult to gain an overall view of all the patients that they were dealing with at any one time partly due to the inadequacy of the computer database that they were using. There was also a problem with the computer database in that it was not possible to amend a booking once it had been made. Consequently the computer database had been reconfigured to make it more fit for purpose however this meant that staff required retraining on the new version. In response to a question from a Member it was acknowledged that more scrutiny should have been undertaken into the computer system that TASL proposed to use, before the contract was signed.

(vi)      The Chair of Healthwatch Leicestershire informed that in October TASL had attended a Board meeting of Healthwatch Leicestershire and concerns arose about the arrangements TASL had in place for managing the contract. Of particular concern was that TASL provided the same telephone number for both TASL staff and non-TASL staff to contact the control room which meant that ambulance drivers had been unable to contact TASL colleagues due the telephone line being engaged. Healthwatch Leicestershire had invited TASL to attend a future Board meeting to provide an update on performance.

RESOLVED:

(a)       That the update on the mobilisation of the new Non-Emergency Transport contract (with Thames Ambulance Services) in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, and the key issues which arose within the first month of mobilisation, be noted;

(b)       That the actions being taken to resolve problematic areas with the Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service be welcomed;

(c)       That officers be requested to produce a report for a future meeting of the Committee providing a further update on progress with the contract, and representatives from Thames Ambulance Service be requested to attend.