Patient Transport Services - where are we now?
A picture of improvement
The evidence we have around PTS in Sussex is now building and we can see a picture of improvement emerging.
- Overall 75% of patients spoken with were satisfied with the quality of service they received, including 44% who were very satisfied.
- 82% (165) of patients said they arrived on time for their appointments, with 18% (39) arriving late.
- 24 of these 39 late arrivals were at least 15 minutes late and five were more than an hour late.
- Only 42% of patients found the process of booking PTS easy to do and found it a positive experience.
- The most common problems encountered were with the automated telephone process, access via key option menus, cost of calls and long waiting times.
Across Sussex
This survey covered patients from across Sussex, however the majority were interviewed in Brighton and Hove; this is to be expected as the Royal Sussex County Hospital here in Brighton provides a wide range of treatments including dialysis and cancer treatments for patients well beyond the boundaries of Brighton and Hove.
It seems that patient satisfaction is lower in Brighton and Hove than elsewhere and we will be monitoring this to see if a trend emerges over time:
SCAS
South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) took over from Coperforma in a phased handover around April 2017, and so the Healthwatch survey was well timed in June 2017 to gather patient experiences and to allow for variations in service during the handover period.
PTS performance figures for the transition period did show a temporary drop in performance. This information was provided to the BBC in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request. The BBC reported in August 2017 that SCAS had explained that their drop in performance during the handover was in part due to an additional 31% of people using the service than what had been included in the contract. Surely the combined CCGs cannot have made the same mistakes about activity and demand management twice in subsequent years?
Unanswered Questions
Also remaining unanswered are the questions about the cost to the taxpayer of the mismanagement of this contract and correcting the Coperforma failures. Back in June 2016 local people were promised at meetings for the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Health Wellbeing Board that a full explanation of the costs of PTS would be made publically available. Perhaps answers will be available when PTS is next discussed by the Brighton and Hove Overview and Scrutiny Committee in February 2018. By this date the December 2017 Healthwatch Sussex-wide patient and user survey results will be available, providing an opportunity for a full explanation of all the evidence available around performance and patient satisfaction.
All the indications are that the PTS service is now performing around the same level as it was when South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) ran the contract.