Agenda item

Andy Hickson, Assistant Director of Commissioning representing Northwest Ambulance Service and a representative from Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group will report at the meeting.  Presentation attached.

Andy Hickson, Assistant Director of Commissioning, North West Ambulance Service; Chris O’Neal, Blackpool Clinical Commissioning Group; Sue Lock, North Manchester Clinical Commissioning Group attended the meeting to provide members of the committee with an update in respect of the new provider of the non urgent patient transport service.  The presentation contained the following information:

The new five year contract was awarded to North West ambulance service as of the 1^st July 2016.  The service will be provided to Greater Manchester CCG registered patients only, to and from any NHS treatment centre for NHS funded treatment.

The new contracts contains revised and simplified Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as well as three service specifications

§  Enhanced Priority Service - renal dialysis and oncology

§  Planned - advanced bookings & appointments

§  Unplanned - ‘on the day’

The Assistant Director of Commissioning reported that the service has been future proofed to enable seven day operating and service reconfiguration.

The Chair invited questions from those present and the following points were raised:

In response to a Member’s question, the Assistant Director of Commissioning reported that a non eligible patient would be signposted by a representative from the booking centre to either an information line, alternative provider or if appropriate another CCG.

With regards to the types of vehicles predominately used by NWAS; the Assistant Director of Commissioning reported that the majority of the service with be provided by traditional Ambulance vehicles; volunteer drivers and St. John Ambulance service will also provided additional support and capacity. The Assistant Director of Commissioning reported that if required NWAS has up to 400 ambulances at its disposal, providing flexibility if there is ever a serious untoward incident and extra support is required.

Members of the Committee sought assurance from Blackpool CCG that the issues that arouse in respect of Arriva miss reporting performance data, would not be repeated with a new provider.  The representative from Blackpool CCG reported that new stringent KPI’s will improve the quality of the services provided.  The quality element will be incentivised as well as improving the availability of service by extending the service through the weekend.  The data collection system has also been improved to enable the CCG to better compare and contrast data that is presented.  The Assistant Director reported that NWAS is a NHS organisation therefore the performance reporting information provided to Blackpool CCG is validated and open to scrutiny and must also complete a thorough internal auditing process.

In response to a Member’s question, the Blackpool CCG representative reported that commissioners have contributed an extra £1 million pounds towards the new non urgent patient transport service.

The Assistant Director of Commissioning reported that there are a number of challenges in providing the new service and there is no room for compliancy, it is envisaged that within the first 100 hundred days the NWAS Trust will be in a position  to accurately say how they are performing.  The Assistant Director reported that he was concerned that activity may increase once patients are aware that NWAS are back providing the service. 

The North Manchester CCG representative reported that a great deal of work has been undertaken to ensure that patient feedback in respect of provision of the new service is captured and if necessary acted upon.