Annual Report 2009/10 North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust

1. Annual Report 2009/10North East Ambulance Service NHS Trust

2. Highlights 2009/10 • Launch of single point of telephone access • Opening of Russell House • Second contact centre • Hazardous Area Response Team established • Top 100 Stonewall’s equality index • Recruited 7,000th public FT member • Influenza pandemic & toughest winter in three decades……

3. Service-wide Category A Performance in 2009-10

4. Service-wide Category B Performance in 2009-10

5. PTS Performance • The PTS transport around 2,700 non-emergency patients each day, to outpatient departments, rehabilitation centres, day-surgery units and to other health-related appointments. • During 2009/10, the patient transport service made 1,1million journeys. This was made possible through the modern software in our control and planning section.

6. Foundation Trust status • Focus on the quality and safety of our services to ensure we continue to provide high standards of care with major public consultation in summer 2009. • Rationale for FT status • Democratic accountability • Financial flexibility • Enhanced management

7. Complaints and Compliments • A total of 198 complaints from people who wanted a written reply from the Chief Executive. • Four not progressed. • 36 resolved after discussing the problem with our Investigating Officer. • We investigated the rest of the complaints and the outcomes of these investigations were as follows: • 90 complaints were upheld. • 49 complaints were not upheld. • 19 complaints are still under investigation at the time of writing this report. • We received 265 letters of appreciation during 2008/09. Of these, 246 were from patients or their families to thank us for the care they had received.

8. Workforce • A total of 210 new staff joined us in a range of roles, including student paramedics, emergency care support workers and ambulance care assistants. • We also employed extra staff to cope with both the influenza pandemic and the increase in illnesses over the winter. • Occupational Health - won the bronze award at the North East Better Health at Work Awards. • Staff training - Matrix award for providing excellent information, support, advice and guidance in personal development and learning for all staff

9. Clinical Care and Patient Safety New directorates under Medical Director, Kyee Han and Director of Patient Safety and Clinical Care, Ann Fox. • Managing clinical risk • Managing complaints • Research and development • Controlling and preventing infection • Protecting children and adults • Clinical quality and audits • Managing medicines • Patient confidentiality

11. Key Financial Results Break Even Duty- The Trust has a retained surplus of £266,000 for 2009/10, incurring less in expenditure than it received in income during 2009/10. The Trust therefore exceeded the Break Even Duty but within a permissible range. Cost Absorption Duty – This duty was changed during 2009/10 so that all Trusts are automatically charged 3.5% of actual net relevant assets rather than on planned net relevant assets. The Trust complied with this change during 2009/10 and therefore met the duty. External Financing Limit - The trust was issued with a positive EFL of £1,421,000 meaning we were able to borrow cash or use our own cash resources by this amount. As permitted by the Department of Health the trust undershot its EFL, that is, it spent less of it’s cash resources/borrowed less than was permissible. Capital Resource Limit - This was set at £8,911,000. The actual achievement was £8,6000,000 giving an under-spend of £311,000.

12. Looking ahead • Equity & Excellence White Paper • Foundation Trust application • NHS 111 pathfinder evaluation • e-PRF pilot