The Independent Ambulance Association set to tackle training standards

Health is one of the ‘hot topic’ issues for people in the UK. The way it is delivered has been changing, with large scale commissioning restructures bringing new Clinical Commissioning Groups and NHS England into being. Underlying this is a desire to keep improving patient care, and key is providing staff that are properly and appropriately skilled and trained.

Independent ambulance companies provide valuable services which support and strengthen the NHS, and help it deliver on its promises to patients, but negative and at times unfair press surround many of these services. One of these surrounds the issue over training standards.

There are a lot of myths circulating about independent ambulance services. Some of them are based on historic problems, and others just from misunderstandings between the independent and NHS sectors.

The modern independent ambulance service is as professional, caring, and as patient focused as any NHS or charity provider. What critics often forget is that from April 2011 independent ambulance providers have been regulated by the Care Quality Commission on exactly the same basis as the NHS ambulance trusts and there is an absolute ‘level playing field’ in terms of compliance and quality of patient service.