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Selected Investigations Completed December 2000March 2001 > Part I, Case no. E.781/00-01
Complaint against: The United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust and Wings Services
Summary of case
Late in 1998, Mr X’s niece, Ms Y, was killed in a road accident in Bath. The vehicle in which she was travelling was hit by an ambulance provided by Wings Services and driven by one of its employees. At the time of the accident, the ambulance was providing a service on behalf of the Trust. The ambulance was being driven at speed using a blue light and siren. The ambulance driver was subsequently convicted for a driving offence relating to the accident. Ms Y’s parents complained to the Trust, asking why one of Wings’ ambulances, driven by a driver who had not received adequate training, was used by the Trust. In his reply, the Trust’s chief executive stated that he did not know the details of the ambulance driver’s experience or training. Mr X discovered that the driver had not received any formal training in emergency ambulance driving prior to the accident. The chief executive later told Mr X that Wings had assured the Trust that the driver was appropriately trained and referred him to Wings if he wanted more details.
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Findings
The Ombudsman found that there was no formal contract between Wings and the Trust to do the work. The Trust had asked that Wings’ staff had appropriate training, though that was not defined. Wings told the Trust that their staff training included a three week emergency driving course, and had provided a schedule showing that the driver involved in this case would receive his driver training in August 1998. That course was cancelled and he did not receive it until after the accident. There was no current statutory provision which required those driving ambulances in an emergency with blue lights and sirens to have any special training. The only Department of Health guidance about the use of private ambulances, from 1993, did not cover the use of private ambulances for emergency work. However, when it clearly envisaged that even those driving ambulances for non-emergency work should generally have some special driving training, by implication those doing emergency work should not have less. The Ombudsman concluded that it was not acceptable for drivers carrying out emergency driving for the NHS to be expected or allowed to undertake such work without additional training or significant relevant experience. The Ombudsman accepted that Wings had a positive approach towards such training. However, he did not accept that it was reasonable for them to allow or expect the driver to undertake that work without relevant practical training. The Ombudsman upheld the complaint both against Wings and against the Trust for not making adequate effort towards ensuring that the services provided were of an appropriate standard. The Ombudsman did not uphold the complaint that Wings misled the Trust about their driver’s qualifications. He found that information provided to them about driver training was given in good faith, even though it subsequently changed. The Ombudsman upheld the complaint against the Trust that they failed adequately to investigate and respond to Mr X’s complaints to them. He said that while the statutory directions on the NHS complaints procedure did not apply in the case, it was still incumbent on Trusts to deal with such complaints carefully and thoroughly.
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Remedy
The Trust and Wings apologised to Mr X. The Trust agreed that in future they would make sure that they had adequate documentation and monitoring of such arrangements and would make it clear that drivers should only be used for emergency work once they had adequate specialist driver training. Mr X had campaigned for a change in the law or policy on the subject. The Driving Standards Agency had set up a ‘Blue Light Users Working Party’ to define a set of competencies for such drivers. The Department of Health were working with them and other bodies and intended to consider what changes might be needed to NHS guidance on the subject. The Ombudsman also drew the Secretary of State for Health’s particular attention to the issue, with a view to making sure that the impetus to remedy matters was not lost.
Full text of this investigation
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