Transcare Secure Services - Birmingham

Updated 16 November 2022

Transcare Secure Services - Birmingham is an independent ambulance service operating predominantly in Birmingham and the Midlands area. The service opened in 2018 and the current registered manager has been in place since opening. The registered manager is the owner. The service was lasted inspected on 23 August 2022 and rated inadequate.

The service transports adults and children over 14 years of age and those detailed under the Mental Health Act (MHA) or Mental Capacity Act (MCA). The service provides patient transport from local NHS trusts and independent health providers to other locations such as hospital and places of safety. There are approximately 20 to 25 active staff members working for the service. This includes the registered manager, an operations manager, an administrator, Registered Mental Health Nurses (RMN) and health care assistants.

The service has two patient transport vehicles in use. The service does not have a formal patient transport contract in place with a healthcare provider. From February 2022 to July 2022, the service undertook approximately 76 patient transfers.

The regulated activity delivered by the provider is transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely.

Updated 16 November 2022

We carried out an inspection of Transcare Secure Services - Birmingham using our focused methodology under the core service framework of Patient Transport Services (PTS).

This inspection was a focused inspection to follow up concerns from our inspection of the service on 23 August 2022, when we imposed an urgent suspension on the registration of the service. As this was a focused inspection, we did not inspect all elements of the key questions. We reviewed elements of two of the five questions: are services safe and well-led? We did not review the questions: are services caring, effective and responsive to people's needs. The previous overall rating for the service of inadequate remains.

Our inspection was announced. We gave the provider short notice of the inspection date to ensure their availability on the day.

We found some areas of residual concern:

• There was no young children restraint training for staff.
• The service had not had the opportunity to test if new forms to monitor the quality of the service were effective.
• Not all policies had been reviewed and updated in response to concerns raised at our last inspection.
• There was no evidence the manager had attempted to engage with other organisations who commissioned the service in order to review and assess its performance.

However,

• Most policies and quality monitoring processes had been reviewed and updated
• Staff refresher training had been undertaken by most staff.
• The manager was taking action to train staff in safe child restraint.
• The service had engaged the use of external professionals and advisers in order to implement an effective action plan.

We found the provider had taken sufficient action to ensure the urgent suspension notice was not extended past its expiry date of 30 September 2022. However, the service remains in special measures. The service will be kept under review and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement, we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to vary the provider’s registration to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.

Updated 16 November 2022

We carried out an inspection of Transcare Secure Services - Birmingham using our focused methodology under the core service framework of Patient Transport Services (PTS).

This inspection was a focused inspection to follow up concerns from our inspection of the service on 23 August 2022, when we imposed an urgent suspension on the registration of the service. We reviewed elements of two of the five questions: are services safe and well-led? We did not review the questions: are services caring, effective and responsive to people's needs. We did not rate this service at this inspection. The previous rating of inadequate remains.

Our inspection was announced. We gave the provider short notice of the inspection date to ensure their availability on the day.

We found some areas of residual concern:

• There was no young children restraint training for staff.
• The service had not had the opportunity to test if new forms to monitor the quality of the service were effective.
• Not all policies had been reviewed and updated in response to concerns raised at our last inspection.
• There was no evidence the manager had attempted to engage with other organisations who commissioned the service in order to review and assess its performance.

However,

• Most policies and quality monitoring processes had been reviewed and updated
• Staff refresher training had been undertaken by most staff.
• The manager was taking action to train staff in safe child restraint.
• The service had engaged the use of external professionals and advisers in order to implement an effective action plan.

We found the provider had taken sufficient action to ensure the urgent suspension notice was not extended past its expiry date of 30 September 2022. However, the service remains in special measures. The service will be kept under review and, if needed, could be escalated to urgent enforcement action. Where necessary another inspection will be conducted within a further six months, and if there is not enough improvement, we will move to close the service by adopting our proposal to vary the provider’s registration to remove this location or cancel the provider’s registration.