A SCANDAL-HIT ambulance trust has been placed into special measures after being branded inadequate by inspectors.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) gave South East Coast Ambulance Service (Secamb) the lowest possible rating after finding it was putting patients at risk.

In three reports published today the CQC highlighted several areas of concern, including the trust’s failure to hit national response targets.

It detailed how patients had abandoned their telephone calls for help - particularly at weekends.

It also found serious issues with how staff were allocated to ambulances, meaning inexperienced or unqualified staff could be sent to patients.

While staff were caring and committed, a recruitment crisis and high staff turnover meant there were not enough people to answer either 999 or NHS 111 calls.

Secamb is the worst performing trust nationally for answering 999 calls within five seconds and is failing to achieve national performance targets for the highest priority calls.

Staff also reported a culture of bullying and harassment and there were divisions between the trust board.

Shortages of staff and high demand for services led to longer shifts and interrupted meal breaks, causing tiredness and exhaustion.

Inspectors said workers were not being given the support they needed from leadership and did not always have the appropriate equipment available to them.

However, they were praised for the compassion and care they gave patients and relatives.

Overall the trust was found to be inadequate for providing safe and well-led services, required improvement for being effective and responsive to people’s needs and good for being caring.

The inspection follows a turbulent time for the trust, which had been widely criticised for a pilot project which slowed ambulance response times for up to 20,000 patients that ran during the

The move breached national guidelines and was highly criticised, leading to former chief executive Paul Sutton and chairman Tony Thorne stepping down.

CQC chief inspector of hospitals, Sir Mike Richards, said the trust had gone through significant upheaval due to changes in management and praised the dedication of staff.

He said: "While we have significant concerns about the performance of the ambulance service, I want to provide some reassurance. Once care arrives, it is of a good standard – with dedicated and caring call handlers, ambulance crew, paramedics and other frontline staff working hard to ensure this.”

Secamb acting chief executive Geraint Davies said 60 new frontline staff had joined the trust since April and it had developed a plan on areas including recruitment retention and performance.

He said: "While we are pleased the dedication and care of our staff is highlighted as good in this report, we are sorry that we have not met the standards expected in a number of other areas.

“We are determined to implement the changes required to restore confidence in our service.”

REPORT HIGHLIGHTS RAFT OF PROBLEMS WITH SERVICE

OTHER issues raised in today’s report include: Outcomes for Secamb patients who had a cardiac arrest were “worse than the national average”, although stroke care was good.

Medical equipment on ambulances could not be shown to be adequately maintained or safe to use The processes for reporting and investigating incidents and the lack of learning from incidents “did not support the safe provision of service”.

Safeguarding arrangements within the trust were exceptionally weak and a lack of accountability and investigation was prevalent throughout the trust.

There was little evidence of learning from complaints and there was poor practice over infection control.

Some 3.1 per cent of 111 calls were abandoned by patients compared with the England average of 2.4 per cent. At weekends this could run to 44 per cent. The CQC said a high call-abandoned rate is considered not to be safe and may reflect a high level of clinical risk for patients.

Maintaining safe staffing levels was problematic for all operational areas of the trust.

Crews with an inappropriate skill mix were despatched to emergencies.

The trust was benchmarked as the worst performing nationally for answering 999 calls within five seconds. Red 1 calls (life threatening) were not always attended within the eight-minute target of 75 per cent – instead it was 71 per cent.

Red 2, less urgent but including stroke and fits, were also not always attended to within the time demanded.

Patient records were found to be not always completed fully or appropriately.