Mealing Taxis Limited

Updated 13 September 2021

Mealing Taxis Limited provided a non-emergency patient transport service (PTS) as part of its taxi and private vehicle hire business. Both activities were managed from their office based in Mount Vernon Hospital, Northwood.

As the Public Carriage Office (part of Transport for London) regulates taxicabs in London, the majority of taxi and hire work undertaken by this company falls out of the scope of our regulation and was not inspected.

The company is registered with the CQC to provide:

• transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely

The PTS activity of the company means the regulated activity we inspected is confined to patients conveyed from home to clinic or hospital appointments. The service was primarily focused on transporting patients to dialysis and outpatient appointments in London and Hertfordshire.

The company did not hold a PTS contract in its own right, but accepted ad-hoc transport requests from an NHS ambulance trust. Last year, around 30 people were transported.

The service operated a small fleet of wheelchair-accessible vehicles along with saloon cars and people carriers.

The founder of Mealing Taxis, Richard Mealing, has been the registered manager since August 2011.

We last inspected the service in 2017. At that time, independent ambulance services were not rated. On this occasion, we inspected this service using our comprehensive inspection methodology.

We did a short notice announced inspection to confirm the changes we told the provider to make after our last inspection had been sustained.

Updated 13 September 2021

• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risk well. Staff assessed risks to patients and acted on them. The service managed safety incidents and learnt lessons from them. Staff collected safety information and used it to improve the service.
• The service met agreed response times. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness, respected their dignity and took account of their individual needs.
• The service worked well to meet the needs of local people and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it and did not have to wait too long for transport.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work.
• Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were focused on the needs of patients during transport. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities.

However:

• We found wheelchairs owned by the company that did not have complete service records.
• While the service had a manager trained in safeguarding to level three, the company was still concluding arrangements for the provision of level four safeguarding advice and support from the local authority.

Updated 13 September 2021

We have not previously rated this service. We rated it as good because:

• Overall, the improvements made following our last inspection in 2017 had been embedded and sustained.
• The service had enough staff to care for patients and keep them safe. Staff had training in key skills, understood how to protect patients from abuse, and managed safety well. The service controlled infection risks well. The service managed safety incidents well and learnt lessons from them.
• Staff provided good care and met agreed response times. Managers monitored the effectiveness of the service and made sure staff were competent. Staff worked well together for the benefit of patients.
• Staff treated patients with compassion and kindness and took account of their individual needs.
• The service planned care to meet the needs of local people, took account of patients’ individual needs, and made it easy for people to give feedback. People could access the service when they needed it.
• Leaders ran services well using reliable information systems and supported staff to develop their skills. The senior management team had been increased in size since and focussed on compliance, which resulted in further improvements to the changes we saw at our last inspection.
• Staff understood the service’s vision and values, and how to apply them in their work.
• Staff felt respected, supported and valued. They were highly focused on the needs of patients receiving care. Staff were clear about their roles and accountabilities.

However:

• We found wheelchairs owned by the company that did not have complete service records.
• While the service had a manager trained in safeguarding to level three, the company was still concluding arrangements for the provision of level four safeguarding advice and support from the local authority.