Glowing report for Lincolnshire's life-saving charity

The inspectors focussed on five key areas: whether the organisation is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well led. It involved examining LIVES governance and policies plus interviews with staff and volunteers, as well as seeing some of the LIVES team in action caring for patients.

The CQC identified a number of areas of good and outstanding practice and there were no areas identified as needing improvement, an achievement the charity is very proud of.

The charity, whose 700 volunteers responded to more than 21,500 medical emergencies in 2017, is fully CQC registered and as such submits to an inspection at least every five years.

The CQC is the independent regulator of all health and social care services in England and the inspections are part of their normal quality checks.

However, unlike NHS hospitals and ambulance services, the CQC are unable to give a formal rating for charities such as LIVES but instead submitted a glowing report about how the charity delivered its activities.

Nikki Silver, CEO of LIVES said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to receive such a positive report from the CQC.

“LIVES prides itself on the quality of the care that it delivers to people in Lincolnshire and works hard with our volunteers to ensure that we hold ourselves to high standards.

“Having this confirmed by the CQC is a real boost to our 700 volunteers and staff and reflects the commitment that each of them makes to responding to medical emergencies in their communities .

“We are particularly proud that the CQC has recognised that LIVES has a strong focus on patients and that the care that we delivered is caring and compassionate as well as clinically sound.

“We are very proud that the CQC has such high praise for our staff and volunteers and could find no areas in which it recommended improvements but we are not resting on our laurels.

“We continually strive to provide the very best response to patients in Lincolnshire who are suffering a medical emergency. We hope the people of Lincolnshire who support our work through their generous donations are equally proud of the important service that LIVES provides.”

Some of the areas highlighted in the CQC report:

Outstanding practice

LIVES leadership demonstrated an open and inclusive approach to all its staff (volunteers) which ensured they felt supported at all times.

The leadership team regularly sought staff (volunteers) opinion before making decisions

A clinical leader was on call 24 hours a day to support and advise staff (volunteers)

Good practice

Incidents were reported and any learning was shared.

Comprehensive policies were in place covering all aspects of safe and effective patient care and treatment.

Medicines management was robust.

Ambulance and equipment were clean, well maintained and serviced regularly.

Staff were trained to deliver good care and treatment following current clinical guidance. They showed compassion, empathy and understanding to patients.

Staff responded to patient’s individual needs.

The organisation had a strong patient focussed ethos with processes in place to promote robust clinical governance.

The senior leadership team were able to respond quickly to identified issues in order to improve the service.

The full report can be accessed on the CQC website: http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/new_reports/AAAH1811.pdf