The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives (AACE) acknowledges the concerns around private ambulance providers and unregulated 'Ambulance Technicians'. AACE supports the College of Paramedics' efforts to protect the 'Ambulance Technician' title and works with statutory ambulance services to ensure quality assurance when contracting with private providers. (AI summary)
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Thank you for copying the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives AACE into the Regulation 28 ruling associated with the sad death of Rio Andrew age 15 at an illegal rave in Croydon in June 2014.
As you note in your letter AACE has not been required to respond to the Regulation 28 notice but was copied in as you felt it may be of interest to us.
Having considered the issue and discussed with the National Ambulance Medical Directors Group we did feel that we should write to you to make a few salient points and to encourage your engagement with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to address the regulatory issues.
AACE remains concerned that private ambulance providers who are providing medical cover at events remain unregulated by CQC in terms of the medical care they are delivering within the event footprint. We have raised this previously with CQC and whilst we appreciate the additional workload it would bring them it is clear that at times the medical care provided can be tragically inadequate. This also brings an unquantifiable additional burden for the statutory ambulance service who have to intervene and also puts patients at risk.
We are also aware of course that the term ‘Ambulance Technician’ is not a protected title and is not regulated. The college of Paramedics has been lobbying for some time to have this title protected and to bring Ambulance Technicians under the same level of regulation as Paramedics. AACE is supportive of this and works closely with the College of Paramedics to attempt to progress this issue.
Statutory Ambulance services when contracting with private providers will undertake their own quality assurance checks to ensure that all staff of all grades used by that private provider in the execution of that contract are appropriately qualified and skilled. It would appear however that some private providers do not operate to the same level of diligence as would appear to be the situation in this case.
I hope this is helpful
Chairman: Dr Anthony C Marsh QAM SBStJ DSci (Hon) MBA MSc MA FASI Managing Director: Martin Flaherty OBE