Warning notice served on NHS ambulance service

The East of England Ambulance Service is based in Bedford and covers six counties
- Published
A warning notice, external has been served on the East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST).
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has issued the notice for multiple failures in several areas, including staffing levels and call wait times.
The emergency service was rated as "requires improvement" after its last inspection in 2022.
The EEAST said it had made "rapid improvements".
The ambulance service covers Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.
When EEAST was last inspected, it was rated as "requires improvement", external in four out of the five areas the inspectors considered.
Its only "good" rating within those five was in relation to whether the trust provided services that were "caring".
The CQC found the trust did not always:
Have enough staff to keep people safe
Keep mandatory training up to date
Manage clinical waste well
Meet agreed response times
Ensure staff felt respected and valued
Figures showed the response time for category one calls had deteriorated by almost 20% during the year, and only 21% of ambulances on category four calls were arriving within three hours.

Figures showed 79% of ambulances responding to category four calls were missing a three-hour target
The CQC has now issued a warning notice under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 for "failing to meet requirements relating to staff training, staffing levels, investigation of controlled drug incidents, call wait times, the culture of the service and acting on information from staff to develop and improve the service".
The CQC said its powers when a warning notice, external is issued included imposing conditions on the trust, or suspending or cancelling its registration.
Failure to comply with the steps required by the CQC could constitute a criminal offence.

Neill Moloney, the EEAST chief executive, apologised for the performance of the trust
The chief executive of the EEAST, Neill Moloney, said: "Our patients expect and deserve good quality care from us. I am sorry that the trust has not always met this expectation.
"Following the CQC warning notice, we have made rapid improvements in the areas they identified, and we are determined to continue to improve our service to patients."
He said the steps already taken included redesigning mandatory training requirements to be more effective, and strengthening control drug handling processes.
The trust said it would continue working to improve the culture of the service.
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